Back to Brief on Iran
TEHRAN - Iran's spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has criticized certain aspects of celebrations of the Iranian new year and said allowing people to observe a popular spring festival was a mistake.
The interior ministry "made a mistake" in allowing celebrations to go ahead this year for the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, he told the radio late Monday.
Khamenei's remarks point
to the sensitive balance between the Islamic regime and popular traditions
in a country with a rich history pre-dating the Moslem era.
Haj Leader Calls For Anti-US Rally, Reuter, March 23
TEHRAN - The head of Iran's haj mission in Saudi Arabia has invited pilgrims from other countries to take part in a ceremony to denounce the United States and Israel in the Moslem holy city of Mecca.
The official Iranian news agency IRNA on Tuesday quoted Hojatoleslam Mohammad Mohammadi Reyshari as saying the Iranian "Disavowal of the Infidels" rally was "a religious duty."
"Reyshari told a group of
clergy and haj caravan officials that participation in the disavowal of
infidels ceremony is complementary to haj rituals, and thus all should
help to gloriously hold the ceremony," IRNA said.
34 Senators Ask Gore to Discuss Russian Arms Aid to Iran, Associated Press, March 23
WASHINGTON - A bipartisan group of 34 senators wants Vice President Al Gore to press Russia's prime minister to stop his country's cooperation with Iran on missiles and nuclear technology.
In a letter released Monday, the 34 said Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov must be convinced that "an Iran armed with nuclear weapons and advanced ballistic missiles is no more in Russia's interests than in our own."
"We want to urge you to make Iranian acquisitions of Russian ballistic missile and nuclear weapons technology an issue of the highest priority in these talks," they wrote.
Initiated by Sen. Dianne
Feinstein, D-Calif., the letter was signed by 20 Democrats and 14 Republicans,
including Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, R-N.C.
Ex-Hostage Says Mullahs' Government Supported Extremists, The Washington Post, March 23
Former hostage Terry Anderson filed a $100 million lawsuit yesterday against the government of Iran, claiming it supported the Islamic extremists who kidnapped him and held him captive in Lebanon for nearly seven years.
The lawsuit… is the latest in a series of civil actions brought by Americans who say they were victims of terrorism carried out with direction from Iran….
"Okay, I'm going to have to be ready to get up in court and recount all these things," Anderson said in an interview yesterday. "It's not the worst thing that ever happened to me. . . . Iran seems intent on rejoining the community of nations. Our position is, before they can do that, they have to take responsibility for what they have done. They can't simply go on denying."…
"If we get anything, it will
be years away," said Anderson, now 51 and a journalism professor at Ohio
University. "That's not the point. The point is to get Iran to acknowledge
its guilt and to get the Clinton administration to engage in the process."…
Bad Roads Claim the Lives of Thirty Children Riding on A Truck, Injure Thirty More, Agence France Presse, March 23
TEHRAN - Thirty children were killed and another 30 injured when a truck transporting them plunged into a ravine in southwestern Iran, the official IRNA news agency reported Tuesday.
The victims, aged between 12 and 15, were on their way home from a Koran recitation competition Monday when the accident occurred on a mountainous road in Khuzestan province.
Iran's roads are notoriously dangerous and there are about 5,000 deaths in road accidents in the country each year.