NICOSIA - Iran's opposition People's Mujahedeen said Tuesday it has asked the United Nations to send a fact-finding mission to investigate dozens of killings it says were carried out by Iran's "medieval" regime.

The group said in a statement that it sent UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson a list of "55 persons from among more than 100 secretly murdered or abducted by the clerical regime."

"The sheer magnitude of the crimes in question and the fact that they are continuing show the true nature of the mullahs' medieval regime," it said in the letter, which claimed more than 80 percent of the murders had occurred since Mohammad Khatami took office two years ago.

The group made reference to a series of murders of opposition leaders and dissident intellectuals late last year which Iranian authorities have blamed on several "rogue" intelligence agents who have not yet been brought to trial.

"A year has elapsed since the latest round of political killings began in Iran Khamenei and Khatami have made a dirty deal ... to prevent any disclosure of the real scale of these crimes," it said.

In a separate statement the group also condemned an announcement Tuesday that the death sentences had been upheld by a Tehran appeals court for three men charged with instigating the massive unrest which rocked the capital in July.

More than 1,000 people were reportedly arrested in the six days of violence that rocked Tehran as well as the provinces in the worst unrest in Iran since the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

In the provincial capital of Tabriz, students said police opened fire on a peaceful campus sit-in, leaving 15 people with gunshot wounds while 80 others were badly beaten by clubs and chains.

Iranian authorities said some of the 21 people jailed in September in connection with the Tabriz violence had links to the People's Mujahedeen.
 

Mullahs' Court Upholds Death Sentence on "Leaders" of July Uprising, Agence France Presse, November 23

TEHRAN - Death sentences on three alleged leaders of the violent unrest which shook Tehran in July have been confirmed by the capital's appeal court, revolutionary court chief Gholamhossein Rahbarpur was quoted as saying Tuesday.

"Of the four students condemned to death, three have had their sentences confirmed on appeal, one has been acquitted because he was mad," the daily Sobh-e-Emruz quoted Rahbarpur as telling university students Monday.

The Qods daily reported on Oct 28 that another of the main instigators of the unrest, Manuchehr Mohammadi, 35, had been sentenced to 13 years in prison by the revolutionary court.
 

Total Strike Shuts Down Tehran's Main Fruit And Vegetable Market, Iran Zamin News Agency, November 22

All shops and wholesale businesses at the biggest fruit and vegetable market in Tehran, known as Tarehbar Square in south Tehran, closed down this morning in protest against the clerical regime's pressures.

Owners of more than 1100 shops and businesses in were protesting against harassment and limitations imposed on them by Tehran's municipality and its refusal to issue business permits for their premises.
 

Regime Snubs US: Request for Periodic Consular Visits Rejects, Associated Press, November 23

WASHINGTON - Iran has rejected a U.S. request to allow U.S. consular officials to visit Iran periodically to promote people-to-people exchanges, the State Department said Tuesday.

Spokesman James P. Rubin said it is "high time" for Iran to allow such visits, given that Iranian officials are routinely permitted to come to the United States to visit private U.S. citizens.

Supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, disclosed in a speech made public Tuesday the U.S. interest in sending officials to Iran but said the underlying motive was to "to open an office for intelligence and political activities and forge ties with their mercenaries."
 

Back to Brief on Iran