Back to Brief on Iran
In a letter to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Iranian Resistance announced that 420 executions have been officially announced since Mohammad Khatami became president in 1997.
More than 140 of these executions have
been carried out in 1999, 41 of them since May 1. This is yet another indicator
of the worsening human rights situation in Iran. In the same period, 10
people have been stoned to death, including four women.
Iranian Jews Fear Further Arrests, The Jerusalem Post, June 22
JERUSALEM - A group of Iranian Jews meeting with Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau in Jerusalem yesterday told him they fear that the Iranian government is planning additional arrests of Jews.
The visitors, who included those active
in organizations of Jews from Iran, told Lau that the Iranian regime is
clearly attempting to disrupt Jewish communal life…
British Trade Delegation's Visit to Tehran Condemned, Iran Zamin News Agency, June 24
A British trade delegation is due to arrive in Tehran today for a six-day visit, according to news agency reports. The delegation is said to be the largest trade delegation from Britain to travel to Iran since the clerical regime came to power in 1979.
In a statement issued today, The National Council of Resistance of Iran strongly condemned this visit and the expansion of trade ties with the religious, terrorist dictatorship ruling Iran.
"Executions and grave violation of human rights continue in Iran and the mullahs' firing of Scud missiles and their truck-bomb attack on a bus on the northern outskirts of Baghdad have been condemned by many political and parliamentary personalities, including British MPs," said the NCR.
The British trade delegation's visit,
coming at such a time, will send a wrong message to Iran's rulers, emboldening
them to continue the repression at home and export of terrorism abroad.
Jewish Spy Controversy Derails Effort To Restore Lending to Iran, USA TODAY, June 23
WASHINGTON -- Iran's arrest of 13 Iranian Jews on charges of spying for Israel has upset efforts to end a 6-year-old boycott of Iran by international lending institutions.
The World Bank was poised to approve two projects -- one to replace Tehran's outmoded sewage system and another for public health clinics -- at the end of its annual meeting in September. But the board of directors has not asked for updates of the projects, largely prepared years ago, because of the controversial arrests, bank and U.S. officials said.
Governments around the world and Jewish organizations have condemned Iran for arresting the 13, who include rabbis and other religious employees from Jewish communities in the provincial cities of Isfahan and Shiraz. …
Abdallah Bouhabib, communications adviser to the World Bank for the Middle East and North Africa, said bank officers were anticipating a request from the bank's board of directors to revise the sewage and public health projects. But after the publicity surrounding the arrests, "the board has not made that request," he said.
Although the United States does not
have veto power over the bank's loans, its view is influential. The World
Bank and International Monetary Fund stopped lending to Iran because of
U.S. concern about Iran's support for international terrorism…
Mullahs' Regime Appoints Cleric As New Top Judge, Reuters, June 22
TEHRAN - Iran has appointed a cleric and a founder of an Iraqi opposition group as head of its judiciary, current judiciary chief Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi said on Tuesday.
Yazdi, quoted by the evening daily Kayhan, said he would hand over the post in two months to Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi.
Hashemi has been a member of several influential political and religious bodies, including the Guardian Council which oversees parliament and elections.
In 1998, he was elected to the Assembly of Experts, which has the power to appoint or sack the country's supreme leader.
"Some people pick up a pen and write that Islamic punishment belongs to Prophet Mohammad's time, and that we should act in conformity with human rights principles," Yazdi said on Tuesday.
"If we wanted to follow the Westerners' idea of human rights, we would not have even deposed the Shah," he said.