In separate letters to the foreign ministers of the fifteen member states of the European Union, Mr. Mohammad Mohaddessin, Chairman of the NCR's foreign affairs committee, said that in the wake of the courageous uprising of the people of Tehran and other cities in Iran, the time had come to sever trade and diplomatic ties with the inhuman regime ruling Iran. "The tumultuous uprising showed clearly that Iranian society is in an explosive state," Mohaddessin said, adding that: "All propaganda about the stability or durability of the mullahs' rule is only pie-in-the-sky ...

"This showed that Khatami has neither the will nor the clout to carry out reform. Khatami first tried to capitalize on the students' grievances and protests and thereby acquire a bigger share of power, but as protests spiraled out of control, Khatami quickly turned into the biggest loser."

The NCR foreign affairs chief said: "After these developments, there remains no justification or legitimacy on the international scene to continue diplomatic and trade ties with the mullahs' medieval regime under the pretext of 'backing' Khatami's moderation.."

"When the clerical regime claims that the uprising by students and the people in Tehran was the work of the U.S. and foreign 'hands,' it is not surprising that it would attribute a clash in Abadan border region to Iraq," the spokesman added.
 
 

Ban on Newspaper Deals New Blow to Khatami, Agence France Presse, August 5

TEHRAN - A five-year ban slapped on Salam newspaper has dealt another blow to Mohammad Khatami's agenda ahead of key elections next year.

The Special Court for Clergy, a pillar of the Islamic regime, also banned the paper's director, Mohammad Khoeinia, from working as a journalist for three years and find him 7,600 dollars.

Khoeinia, like Khatami, is a member of the Association for Combatant Clerics, a radical political-religious formation turned reformist since Khatami's election two years ago.

He had for many years followed a radical revolutionary line, and became famous as a leader of the 1979 seizure of hostages at the US embassy in Tehran.
 
 

Mojahedin Clash With GC And Intelligence Ministry Agents in Khuzistan Province, Iran Zamin News Agency, August 4

The General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) in Khuzistan Province announced that "an armed confrontation took place between the GDI special forces" and the Mojahedin. Following the mullahs' routine lies, the GDI statement linked the clash to Iraq and a Mojahedin fighter who had "joined the Mojahedin in 1983 and crossed the border into Iran to carry out a terrorist operation."

Since the attack, by the Mojahedin military units' last month on the command headquarters of the province's Guards Corps in Ahwaz, the Guards and the Intelligence Ministry have been trying to deal a counter-blow to the Mojahedin. This has led to sporadic clashes in different parts of the province. The clash in an Abadan border area is one such confrontation, in which a Mojahedin supporter from the Arab tribes of Khuzistan was slain. The confrontations demonstrate the defiant resistance of the local tribes and Mojahedin supporters in the face of the brutal assaults by the Revolutionary Guards and the Intelligence Ministry agents of the mullahs' regime."
 
 

Defending "The Revolution >From the Curse That Threatens It", Agence France Presse, August 5

TEHRAN - Iran's volunteer Islamic Basiji militia stepped up its maneuvers in the hills around Tehran on Thursday in show of force a month after the capital was rocked by bloody unrest.

The maneuvers, which involve some 50,000 Basiji -- are designed as a show of "determination to defend the revolution from the curse that threatens it," a military official said.

Early Thursday many of the Basiji, aged between 15 and 80, took part in mass prayers led by the head of the Pasdaran, or Revolutionary Guards, General Rahim Safavi.

Safavi told the assembled militia they were the mainstay of the Iranian government and people.
 

"Supreme leader ... Ali Khamenei was given misleading information on Iran's social unrest in July. Khamenei told a student blinded in a police attack on student dormitories: 'I hadn't heard it like this...They didn't tell me that this had happened.'"

State-Controlled Neshat Daily, August 5

Back to Brief on Iran