A high ranking official of the clerical regime admitted that the number of prisoners in Iran was 16 to 24 times more than the international average. In this respect, Iran under the mullahs' rule "is among the leading countries in the world," he said.

In a seminar in Tehran this week, Shoja'i-Zand, the head of the social affairs department of the Interior Ministry said: "According to the international average, there are 10 to 15 prisoners for every 100,000 persons. Regrettably, our average is 243 for every 100,000 persons, making us one of the leading countries in the world."

The figure given by Shoja'i-Zand is the official figure, which does not include multitudes of political prisoners who are being detained in thousands of safe houses, secret detention centers and special prisons throughout the country.
 
 

U.S. Assails Tehran on Terrorism, Associated Press, November 30

WASHINGTON - The State Department is accusing Iran of reneging on promises to abandon support for terrorism in an attempt to destroy hopes among Arabs and Israelis for a comprehensive peace.

Spokesman James P. Rubin, noting that senior Iranian officials have publicly denounced terrorism, said Monday it is "reasonable for us to expect that the actions and policies of the Islamic Republic should reflect these statements."

Rubin's comments were among the harshest by a U.S. spokesman since Secretary of State Madeleine Albright proposed in a June 1998 speech that the two countries open an official dialogue.
 

Khatami's Muted Reaction to Nouri's Sentence, BBC World Service, November 30

"Historically, what they're doing is incredible: they're putting each other in jail," was the comment of one amazed Iranian exile.

He was reacting to news that a veteran Islamic revolutionary cleric, who twice served as Interior Minister, had been led off to prison for five years on the orders of a special religious court in Tehran.

The dramatic prosecution of such a central figure brought out into the open the often veiled struggle at the heart of the Islamic regime… In the days of… Khomeini himself, Mr. Nouri was the Imam's trusted representative to such key bodies as the Revolutionary Guards…

Yet his imprisonment… has led neither to an outbreak of violence… nor to an open confrontation between the two main factions within the regime.

Khatami himself reacted mildly, voicing regret coupled with only oblique criticism of the clerical court... His is not the language of confrontation and factional defeat or victory.
 

Khatami's Hollow Economic Plan, Associated Press, November 21
 

TEHRAN - Book a nice hotel room, eat a meal or buy a soft drink -- chances are the money flows to one of Iran's "foundations" and on to the country's powerful, hard-line clerics.

The impressive holdings of the foundations, or "bonyads," cover nearly every aspect of life... Outside Iran, the bonyads' wealth include cargo ships and a New York office building…

… No serious restructuring of the anemic economy is possible without breaking the bonyads' stranglehold.

But that means confronting an ultra-powerful establishment, which some experts say includes confidants and key allies of supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

A growing number of critics accuse the bonyads of acting as autonomous conglomerates outside any normal controls or scrutiny.

Conservative estimates say at least a quarter of Iran's economy is controlled by the dozen or so main bonyads.

The full extent of the bonyad wealth is difficult to ascertain, since they are neither audited nor obliged to fully disclose their ventures. But the bonyads' own material gives a hint of their reach.

The bonyads run global shipping lines from offices in London and Athens, Greece, and there is the Bonyad Eastern Railway at home. A bonyad consortium is seeking to open an airline. Iran's best-selling soft drink, Zam Zam, is a bonyad brand.

The bonyad boards are rooted in Iran's political culture. Many directors were leaders of the revolution and enjoyed close ties with Khomeini.

"There is no real dialogue about economic reforms unless there is discussion about making the bonyad more accountable and bringing them into the system," said Mehrdad Baghery, a former central bank executive who is seeking to open one of Iran's first private credit institutions.

Khatami's new five-year economic plan is lacquered with a thick sheen of optimism for a nation that has watched its fortunes grow tarnished.

But no mention was made of trying to squeeze state revenues from the bonyads.
 

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