The mullahs' anti-human regime executed nine people in Shiraz and Bandar Abbas (southern Iran), Sanandaj (western Iran) and Orumieh (northwest Iran) during the past two weeks alone.

These bring to 390 the number of announced executions since Khatami took office.

Abbas Afradeh, aged 18, was hanged by a construction crane on Thursday, May 13, in dairy producers' market in the city of Bandar Abbas. He was only 17 at the time of his arrest.

Two Kurdish political prisoners, Mostafa Qaderi, from the western city of Mahabad, and Mohammad Amin Chamak, from the village of Shin-abad in Piranshahr (in the western Iranian province of Kurdistan), were hanged in Orumieh prison. They had been imprisoned several years ago.

Members of the regime's State Security Force in Isfahan (central Iran) shot and killed a 25-year-old man on Monday, May 17 on the pretext of "buying and selling drugs."

The clerical regime attempted to stone to death a young man in south Tehran's Khani-abad district last week on the charge of moral offenses. Local people staged a protest upon learning of this inhuman act.

Concerned over the expansion of this protest, agents of the State Security Force and the Prosecutor's Office reluctantly postponed the stoning. They, however, detained and took away at least 20 defiant youths.
 
 

Extremists Attack Participants in Memorial For Iranian Premier Mossadegh, Agence France Presse, May 20

TEHRAN - Several people were slightly injured when extremists attacked a gathering to commemorate the birthday of deceased prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh, the father of secular nationalism in Iran, newspapers said Thursday.

"The attack by the extremists disrupted the ceremony and the crowd dispersed," Jahan-e-Eslam said, adding that the assailants then damaged the participants' vehicles in the village, which is 100 kilometers (62 miles) west of Tehran.
 
 

Power Struggle Reaching the Guardian Council, Reuter, May 20

TEHRAN - Khatami has overseen changes at home and abroad since his election two years ago, but a raging debate over the role of the clergy in the Islamic Republic could yet define his presidency.

At issue is the power of the Guardian Council, dominated by conservative clerics, to eliminate candidates for parliament as ideologically unfit for elected office in the Islamic Republic.

The Guardians' formal role is to preserve the Islamic values of the state and to ensure that all legislation and government orders conform to Koranic laws and Shi'ite tradition.

In practice they have served to protect conservatives and to dilute the power of the people in favor of the clerical establishment.

Mehdi Karroubi, leader of a clerical faction, told reporters the Council had overstepped its bounds by eliminating candidates and then dismissing all criticism of its actions as un-Islamic.

Such an attack on a central pillar of the Islamic system provoked a strong defense of the supervisory role of the Guardians from Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
 
 

Water Shortage Threatens Iranian Cities While Officials Overspend It Free, Agence France Presse, May 20

TEHRAN - With Iran parched by a drought, authorities in the northeastern city of Gorgan have decided to create a "water police" to monitor consumption and prevent waste of the precious liquid.

The national capital, Tehran, is also in danger of an acute water shortage following an especially dry winter that has left reserves 50 percent below last year's supply, an official IRNA news agency reported March 1.

Ayatollah Hossein Nuri Hamedani told the faithful that sins such as murder, injustice and bad intention -- as well as not trusting fellow Shiite Moslems -- can keep the rain from falling.

Crops are also being hit by the shortage.

Iranian radio said that the wheat harvest will decline by between 2.5 and three million tones this year because of the drought.

Rice will be even more seriously affected because water supplies are not adequate to irrigate the paddies.

[Reuter on May 18, quoting state-controlled daily Arya reported "Some three percent of Tehran's population use 30 percent of its water supplies, the manager of a large dam outside the capital said. He said government offices did not pay for their water and wasted it."]
 

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