LONDON—Iran continued to hold hundreds of political prisoners in 1998, many sentenced after unfair trials, the human rights group Amnesty International said Wednesday in its annual report.

"Reports of torture and ill treatment continued to be received," Amnesty said, adding that its information also suggested that "extrajudicial executions" had occurred.

The report detailed a number of instances in which journalists were detained as a result of their work.

Towards the end of the year several writers and intellectuals were found murdered.

Amnesty said at least 20 members of the Bahai religious minority continued to be held, at least six of them under sentence of death. One Bahai was executed in Mashhad in July for converting a Moslem woman to the Bahai faith.

Several Moslem religious leaders were arrested in 1998 over their opposition to government policies. The report said at least three Grand Ayatollahs were believed to be under house arrest, and large numbers of their supporters were detained.

Amnesty also reported the arrest of scores of people following demonstrations in Tabriz, and others held without charge or trial.

The report said political prisoners continued to receive unfair trials.

"Detainees were reportedly denied access either to any legal counsel or to a lawyer of their choice," it said.

"Trials before special courts, such as the Special Court for the Clergy, continued to fall far short of international standards," it added.

"Torture and ill-treatment continued to be reported," Amnesty said. Methods including beatings and floggings, sleep deprivation, being forced to stand for long periods, exposure to loud noises, lack of food and threats to relatives.

Several of the Tehran municipal officials said they had been tortured to "elicit confessions or to incriminate others," the report said.

Amnesty said Iran continued to apply "cruel, inhuman or degrading" punishments, including flogging and stoning to death.

It said the death penalty was widely used "often imposed for vaguely worded offences." Scores of executions were reported, it said, some carried out in public.

Amnesty said there had also been a number of possible "disappearances" and reports of deaths in mysterious circumstances, suggesting "extrajudicial executions."
 
 

Mural of Sadat's Assassin To Be Painted in Tehran Street by Mullahs, Reuter, June 16

TEHRAN—Egypt, already insulted by the naming of a Tehran street after the assassin of its late president Anwar Sadat, may now face a further affront in the form of a mural of the Islamist killer.

A group of Iranian hardliners have tried to paint a large portrait of Khaled Islambouli, the Islamist activist who assassinated Sadat in 1981, on a wall overlooking a street already named in his honor, press reports said on Wednesday.

"Changing the name of the street on the pretext of creating links with the Egyptian government is an act of treason against Islam and the revolution," said one of the protesters, quoted by Jomhuri-e Eslami, a hardline newspaper.

The paper said the mural would be unveiled on Friday after the weekly Moslem prayers, although the hardliners reportedly faced opposition from authorities in their attempt to start painting on Tuesday.

The street name is one of the thorniest issues hindering ties between Iran and Egypt.

The move came on the opening day of an Islamic parliamentary conference.

Egypt has sent a low-ranking delegation in an apparent protest over the street name.

Tehran and Cairo severed diplomatic relations 20 years ago after Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel and gave refuge to the shah of Iran, who was toppled in the 1979 Islamic revolution.
 
 

Fearing Backlash, Iranian Journalists Cancel U.S. Trip, The Associated Press, June 14

TEHRAN—A group of Iranian journalists canceled a trip to the United States, apparently fearing they might anger hard-liners in the ruling clergy, a newspaper reported Sunday.

The eight journalists, including chief editors of Iran's main papers, were to leave for Washington this week, Farda newspaper said.

But they decided not to go because the trip became "politicized," Farda said.

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