Following the UN General Assembly’s adoption of a resolution condemning human rights violations in Iran, Mr. Massoud Rajavi, President of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said in a statement: This resolution makes it abundantly clear that 30 months after Khatami took office nothing has changed in this regime as far as repression is concerned. All factions in the clerical regime trample upon the most basic human rights of the Iranian people to maintain their evil rule.

The NCR President added: The record of the clerical regime's crimes and admissions by several officials and state-run newspapers - in the month since the Third Committee's adoption of the prototype of this resolution - that the regime itself carried out these crimes, show that the resolution in no way reflected the real dimensions of the widespread and systematic violation of human rights in Iran.

In these circumstances, the NCR President underscored, any attempt to mollify Tehran’s criminal rulers or efforts to divide responsibility for human rights abuses in Iran, thereby exonerating certain factions of this theocratic state, only embolden the clerical regime to continue and step up these atrocities.
 

"Speedier Execution" of Iranian Teenager!, Iran Zamin News Agency, December 19

The regime's media announced that Nategh-Nouri, the Speaker of the mullahs' parliament "praised the judiciary for its firm and speedy dealing with the murderers of the martyred member of the Revolutionary Guards' paramilitary and urged the judicial authorities to carry out the death sentence as soon as possible in order to prevent the repetition of such incidents."

Only three days after the killing of a Revolutionary Guards member and a commander of the paramilitary Bassij in East Tehran, the mullahs' regime held a summary show trial and sentenced a teenager accused of killing Mohebbi to death. Another teenager was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment and 74 lashes.

Acknowledging the hatred the public feels toward the regime's repressive agents, Jebheh daily wrote: "The insecurity of the Hezbollah forces today is an irrefutable fact. If the question of moral and religious warnings given by these forces in Tehran's parks and streets is not taken seriously, then every day we shall witness the martyrdom of several Bassij members. The judiciary must deal firmly with the gangs that are carrying out these murders and identify their agents and masterminds."

The calls for the execution of a teenager reflects mullahs' profound fears over the increasing attacks in recent weeks on their repressive agents and those directly responsible for torture and execution.
 
 

Associated Press - Ali Khamenei on Friday criticized those calling for better ties with the United States, describing them as "ignorant."

Although he didn't name him outright, Khamenei was apparently referring to jailed Abdollah Nouri, who was sentenced last month to five years in jail for religious dissent.

"A person, sometimes a cleric, but a deceived one standing against the revolution he once supported, now says something that is the word of the enemy, not his own," Khamenei said during a Friday prayer sermon at Tehran University.

"That man, with his corrupted pen, is trying to prove that the U.S. is not the enemy of our nation and that we have to compromise," Khamenei said.

Agence France Presse - Mullahs' supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed Friday that Iran would remain committed to the Palestinian cause, in an apparent criticism of long-time Arab ally Syria's resumption of peace talks with Israel.

Speaking at the main weekly Muslim prayers here, he vowed Iran's hostility to the Middle East peace process was unshakeable. His comments represent one of the first official reactions by Tehran to two days of historic peace talks between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara in Washington this week.

Reuters - In one of his sharpest attacks on the reformists, Khamenei said they served U.S. and Israeli attempts to demoralize Iranians, cause internal dissent and weaken Islamic beliefs.

"Enemies call these acts of sabotage reforms. I am not talking about unconscious friends, but organizers of this movement, who are based abroad, and those in charge of it inside the country are enemies," Khamenei said in a sermon at weekly prayers at the Tehran University campus.

"The enemy is talking through unconscious people, such as an uninformed and duped cleric, or an emotional student or even a revolutionary person who has not recognized the enemy or has gripes," he said in the remarks broadcast on state radio.
 

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