TEHRAN - The Iranian education ministry has forbidden female language instructors from holding classes for schoolboys over the age of 10, newspapers reported Sunday.

"The presence of women teachers in classes with schoolboys over the age of 10 is forbidden," said a statement by education ministry noting that male instructors are not allowed to teach schoolgirls either.

The Iranian regime is carrying out a campaign for the Islamization of numerous public educational and medical facilities.

The parliament in April 1998, adopted a law for the "Islamization" of medical facilities focussing on the separation of sexes in Iran's hospitals.
 
 

The Intolerance Circle Tightens, Another Cleric Jailed by Religious Court, Agence France Presse, April 4

TEHRAN - Another cleric close to dissident Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri has been jailed by order of Iran's hardline special religious court, a pro-government newspaper reported Sunday.

Mohammad-Ali Nejad al-Hosseini was arrested March 20 in the central Iranian city of Esfahan, the Sobh-e-Emrouz paper reported.

The elderly Montazeri was once in line to succeed then supreme leader and founder of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, but fell out with the regime.

In February the SCC [Special Court for Clergy] ordered the arrest of another cleric close to Montazeri, Mohsen Kadivar, sparking public demonstrations and widespread outrage.
 
 

Court Upholds Two-Year Jail Term for Convicted Tehran Mayor, Agence France Presse, April 3

TEHRAN - Iran's supreme court has upheld a two-year prison sentence against former Tehran mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi, newspapers reported here Saturday.

Karbaschi, who was convicted on corruption charges last year but has been free while his case was under appeal, is due to be arrested "in the next few days," the Sobh-e-Emrouz paper said.
 
 

Tracking Arms: A Study in Smoke, Washington Post, April 3

For analysts at the National Security Agency, the transcripts scrolling across their computer screens in May 1997 set off immediate alarms. Bank letters of credit… appeared to show that a French company was selling missile components to Iran that could end up in weapons targeting ships in the Persian Gulf….

Ten months of acrimonious exchanges failed to resolve the issue. But today, U.S. intelligence agencies believe Iran possesses as many as 150 of the anti-ship cruise missiles, most bought from China, but some manufactured by the Iranians themselves based in part on copies of the French engine.

The story of how the C-802 missile and its high-tech French engine made its way first to China, and then to Iran, is a case study in one of U.S. foreign policy's central preoccupations: the proliferation of missiles and other weapons, particularly those, such as the C-802, that in theory terrorists could use to mount a germ war attack….

In 1990 U.S. officials were alarmed to learn China was selling C-802s to Iran, plus the means to build their own C-802 factory. U.S. spy cameras in space snapped away as a Chinese ship delivered the first C-802 to an Iranian port in the fall of 1993….

The Iranians sought to find a new source of C-802s. Like Beijing, Tehran started "reverse-engineering" the weapons to make them itself. But first it needed Microturbo engines and parts. Tehran officials retained a Hong Kong firm, Jetpower Industrial Ltd., to act as a front…

Jetpower has repeatedly purchased arms illicitly for Iran, U.S. officials said. In 1993 it pleaded guilty in Hong Kong to smuggling $2.5 million worth of U.S. fighter jet parts to Iran.

Meanwhile, the NSA taped Iranian military officials discussing efforts by a Syrian arms dealer named Monzer al-Kassar to procure "802 items" for Tehran so it could reverse-engineer the engine. Al-Kassar, who lives in a Spanish seaside villa, has been investigated by western intelligence for years. Enjoying close ties to Syrian intelligence, he has been reputed to be a source of arms for terrorists….

In the end the Iranians got what they wanted; they now can manufacture C-802 missiles themselves, said Jane's Defence, an authoritative industry publication. In December former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani boasted that Tehran's missile industry is "technologically self-sufficient."

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