Britain's Foreign Office Minister Peter Hain told the House of Commons on Wednesday that London was about "to provide Iran with night-vision equipment." He said the action was aimed at "raising the capabilities of Iranian border guards." The junior minister praised what he described as the mullahs' "incessant struggle against drug traffickers" and mentioned that Britain had provided the clerical regime with £1.5 million since 1999. (source: IRNA, June 8)

The Iranian Resistance strongly condemns the export of military equipment, special night-vision equipment, and cash donations for strengthening the mullahs' war and terror machine. It regards such aid as being against the supreme interests of the Iranian people.

As for the issue of drug traffic through Iran, the ruling mullahs play the biggest role in the drug business in Iran and drug traffic to other countries. One former intelligence official of the regime acknowledged in an interview with a Tehran newspaper: "The drug traffic through Iran was one of the projects undertaken by the Intelligence Ministry and it was a lucrative business with huge revenues." (Akbar Ganji, Arya daily, January 3, 2000)
 

Antigovernment Uprising In Southwest Tehran, Iran Zamin News Agency, June 9

Some 6,000 residents in the southwest Tehran suburb of Shahrake Sina staged an antigovernment demonstration on Tuesday, June 6, chanting "No freedom as long as the bearded rule," "tanks, guns, [paramilitary forces of] Bassijis are no longer effective" and "down with the mullahs' regime." The protesters attacked government-owned vehicles and buildings with sticks and stones, severely damaging dozens of them. Angry demonstrators also completely sealed the Tehran-Karaj dual carriage way for several hours.

The protests were triggered by a chronic shortage of drinking water. Contingents of Revolutionary Guards and State Security Forces rushed to the area and tried to crush the protest by using water jets and firing tear gas and automatic weapons, but this made the crowd more infuriated and many more residents joined the protesters.
 

Khatami's Conspicuous Silence Exacting Its Toll, Time Magazine, June 12

… Mohammed Khatami strides across the Mehrabad Airport tarmac to the salute of soldiers in ceremonial sashes. Mullahs in dark robes, bearded aides in suits with tieless shirts and militiamen carrying Kalashnikovs trail him… Could the President answer some questions? He laughs. "Inshallah [God willing]." The phrase could be construed as an Islamic brush-off: right now, at least, the President is talking to almost no one in the press. These days the President of Iran is moving very carefully.

… One of the President's closest friends is recovering from a gunshot wound to the head, nearly assassinated by hard-liners. Dozens of other supporters are in jail or heading there. Iran's hard-liners have sent a chilling message that they won't go without a fight. Through all this, Khatami has been conspicuously quiet…

Yet the silence risks spreading disillusionment… The pressures are exacting a toll. Chest pains sent him to the hospital recently. He winds down each night by scratching out a few pages of his memoir--in ink--at home. Khatami is a former Culture Minister and a onetime head of the national library. He is not a born politician. His colleagues speak of his "delicate sensibilities." They fear he might resign or refuse to run for a second four-year term next year… American officials grimly point to Khatami's meetings with supporters of terrorism as a sign that he may not be as moderate as some hope.

… One Iranian political scientist has engaged in the morbid task of trying to calculate the odds that Khatami will remain in office. His verdict: a 70% chance that radicals will try to overthrow Khatami. He's giving 5-1 odds against the possibility that Khatami will still be around in a year's time. Some in Iran argue that conservatives have already staged a "silent" coup, by intimidating the media and attacking Khatami's key aides. The arm of the hard-liners has stopped short only of Khatami himself. Last year they put presidential confidant Abdollah Nouri on trial for publishing anti-Islamic articles. Though the transcript of his pro-democracy court testimony became a best-selling book, Nouri got a five-year jail sentence.

… Crushed by inflation and 16% unemployment, Iranians are losing patience. At Tehran University two weeks ago, thousands held a pro-democracy demonstration, chanting angry slogans against hard-line mullahs… If anything, the convening of a reform parliament puts more pressure on Khatami to satisfy the yearning for change. "We understand he is trying to fill a huge pool with an eyedropper," says Tehran secretary Rezvan Nayeri, 34. "But there is no more room for excuses." Some students are frustrated too that the reform movement remains an insider's game, still intolerant of secularists, socialists or anyone ambivalent about the Islamic Revolution…

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