Back to Brief on Iran
Twenty-eight senators Thursday urged the Clinton administration to change its policy toward Iran by openly supporting the opposition, including a rebel group the State Department considers terrorists.
The bipartisan group of senators, in a letter to Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, said the administration’s policy of trying to work with Iranian President Mohammed Khatami is a failure.
They rejected a view widely held in the administration that Mr. Khatami is a centrist who favors reform. They called for the State Department to "look afresh toward the possibilities that exist within Iran’s democratic opposition, including the People’s Mojahedin,"…
The senators, however, said that more than two years after Mr. Khatami’s election, "the evidence indicates little perceptible change, internally or internationally, in Tehran’s behavior.
"Now is not the time to associate ourselves with a regime that continues to subject its people to repressive and brutal practices.
"Rather, we should work with the Iranian people to further their deeply held aspirations for democracy and human rights."
The letter was organized by Sens. Christopher
S. Bond, Missouri Republican, and Robert G. Torricelli, New Jersey Democrat…
Senators Say No Evidence of Real Change After two Years of Khatami's Presidency, Associated Press, October 15
WASHINGTON - The Clinton administration is renewing an offer to hold face-to-face talks with Iran, but a group of 28 senators urged Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to take a tough line.
Two years after the election of President Mohammad Khatami, there is no real evidence of change within Iran or in its stance toward the rest of the world, the senators wrote.
The group, headed by Sens. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., and Christopher Bond, R-Mo., urged the State Department to "look afresh towards the possibilities that exist within Iran's democratic opposition, including the People's Mojahedin."
The Washington office of Mujahedeen
Khalq, which means people's "Mojahedin," has criticized the State Department's
inclusion of it on a list of terrorist groups as an effort to appease "the
criminal mullahs" who rule Iran.
22,000 Sign Petition President Chirac Against Khatami Visit, Reuters, October 15
PARIS - Iranian exiles handed a petition to French President Jacques Chirac's office Friday that they said contained the signatures of 22,000 French people opposed to a visit by Iranian President Mohammed Khatami later this month.
"We urge you not to allow the principles upon which our republic has been established to be violated by such a visit. We call upon you to cancel the trip," said the petition, organized by the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran.
A council spokesman said the petition bore the signatures of many prominent French figures including Bishop Jacques Gaillot, ex-health minister Leon Schwartzenberg and wartime resistance heroine Lucie Aubrac, all left-wing human rights activists.
Chirac's office confirmed the petition had been received but said it did not know how many signatures there were.
The petition said the visit came at a time "when human rights organizations have reported a worsening of the human rights situation in Iran."
A statement from the Paris office of the Council said the French people who had signed the petition "highlighted Khatami's role in the suppression of student demonstrations this summer."
Another Manifestation of Khatami's "Rule of Law": Woman to Be Stoned, Reuters, October 17
TEHRAN - A court sentenced an Iranian woman to punishment by stoning for adultery and condemned her lover to death for killing her husband, newspapers reported on Sunday.
The court ordered the 33-year old woman, identified only as Masoumeh, stoned for adultery in accordance with the country's laws and gave her a 15-year jail term for complicity in her husband's murder, the Qods daily said.
Her 21-year old lover was condemned to death and to receive 100 lashes before execution for extra-marital sexual relations.