Back to Brief on Iran
CNN, October 27 - Protesters waved red, white and green Iranian flags and carried signs labeling… Khatami a murderer… The opposition sees Khatami as no more moderate and much weaker than other hard-line Iranian leaders. "Mr. Khatami has no power. It’s very easy to speak of reforms when one has absolutely no power to make it happen. To talk about it is very easy ...," said Dr. Saleh Rajavi, of the Iranian National Resistance Council.
Times of London, October 28 - … Despite frontier controls and dawn raids on the suburban headquarters of the National Council of Resistance, the main Iranian resistance movement, Iranian exiles demonstrated in central Paris demanding the overthrow of the… regime. About 20 demonstrators threw eggs at… Khatami's motorcade as it passed the Latin Quarter. They were loaded on to a bus as they chanted "Down with Khatami"…
Voice of America, October 28 - Khatami, on the second day of a visit to France, has been forced to re-arrange his schedule because of protests by Iranian exiles… Since he arrived in Paris Wednesday… Khatami has been shielded from Iranian exiles protesting his human rights record…. On at least two occasions, protesters threw eggs at the motorcade taking him through the city.
The Independent, October 28 - … The French government made elaborate efforts yesterday to curb protests against… Khatami... Even so, about 5,000 people attended an authorized demonstration at the Place de la Trocadéro, across the river from the Eiffel Tower. Most were supporters of the Iranian National Council of Resistance, whose main component is an armed opposition movement known as the Mujaheddin…
Agence France Presse, October 28 – Khatami’s visit here was marked by ongoing protests despite drastic measures by French police by turning away at the borders hundreds of would-be protestors and swooping on dissident exiles.
Voice of America, October 29 - … [Khatami’s] visit was marked by a series of demonstrations organized by Iranian exiles who argue that… Khatami's apparent moderation is a sham and that human rights violations, such as executions and torture, continue as before… Iranians managed to hang a banner with the words "Down with Khatami" across the Arc de Triomphe.
Reuters, October 29 -
… Iranian exiles, French Jewish groups and human rights activists have
dogged Khatami during the visit, accusing him of crushing opposition at
home and supporting terrorists abroad… One human rights protester still
succeeded in entering the UNESCO headquarters and throwing a tomato at
Khatami’s car as he left.
UN Says Repression Not Decreasing In Iran, Agence France Presse, November 1
UNITED NATIONS - Freedoms of the press, expression and association are on the decline in Iran since the repression in July of student protests against the current regime, the United Nations said in a report released Monday.
An official for the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, Maurice Copithorne, said in the report that "these events were generally seen as the most serious challenge to the regime since the Islamic revolution."
Copithorne said the Iranian authorities have not allowed him to enter Iran since February 1996.
He also said the government continues
to use torture and maltreatment and demanded that they be stopped.
Mullahs Try to Silence Youth Army, The Independent, October 30
… Tehran University could be anywhere in the world. There are the same knots of students talking and smoking, the same radical political posters, but here student politics is a matter of life and death.
Three students will learn today if they are to be executed – as the prosecution is demanding – for activities that have outraged Iran's conservative religious leaders. Their crime is blasphemy…
Only months ago, several Tehran University students were tear-gassed and beaten by gun-toting vigilantes and police… There is some resentment on the campus that Mr. Khatami did not do more to help the students who were taken to court in the summer… in fact, many of them accuse Mr. Khatami of dragging his feet.
"He does nothing but promise," said
one woman wearing a chador.
Unemployed Couple Sells Baby for $111, Agence France Presse, October 25
TEHRAN - A young unemployed Iranian couple sold their newborn baby in the northeastern city of Mashhad, the Khorassan daily reported Monday.
The unnamed couple, aged 22 and 20, sold the baby "due to their financial difficulties, the paper said.