Robin Cook's visit to Iran was suddenly postponed yesterday with both countries citing scheduling problems on the Iranian side… British MPs… have criticized the two-day trip...

A cross-party majority of MPs accused Mr. Cook of "cozying up" to the Iranian regime before it had improved its bad human rights record. Robin Corbett, a Labor MP, said: "It is the wrong time to cozy up to the regime," which, despite claims about Mr. Khatami's liberalism, had shown no signs of real change.

At a press conference, he announced that 335 MPs and 60 peers had signed a statement urging the government to make promotion of economic and diplomatic ties conditional on full respect for human rights in Iran.

Mr. Corbett warned that Britain was in danger of repeating its mistake, of 20 years ago, of backing the Shah against his Islamic opponents who then had mass support. In view of what he claimed was growing internal opposition to the current Iranian regime, "we run a real risk of being on the wrong side again", adding that "we should back the millions (of Iranians) not the mullahs"…
 

Former Police Chief Gets Top Military Post, Agence France Presse, June 29

TEHRAN - Supreme leader Ali Khamenei has named the country's former police chief, replaced Wednesday, to a senior post in the military hierarchy, state radio reported Thursday.

General Hedayat Lotfian was appointed to the inspection division of the armed forces general staff, replacing General Ali Sayad Shirazi, who was assassinated in April last year.

State radio said Wednesday that Khamenei had named General Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, 50, head of the air wing of the elite Revolutionary Guards, to lead the powerful internal security forces.

The new appointment comes as Iran is experiencing social unrest because of the economic situation and unemployment, and suffering sporadic attacks by the People's Mojahedin opposition.

Khamenei ordered Qalibaf to strengthen "collective security" in the country. He called on the new police chief to "intensify the fight against evil-doers, bandits and all those who spread insecurity," the radio said.
 

300 Factory Workers Stage Hunger Strike, Agence France Presse, June 29

TEHRAN - Some 300 workers at a factory making taps and valves in the Iranian holy city of Qom have been on hunger strike since the beginning of the week in pursuit of a claim for unpaid wages, a press report said Thursday.

The paper quoted some of the strikers as saying that most of the workers could no longer afford to pay the rent on their homes.

Every day, in Tehran and in the provinces, unpaid workers assemble in front of a particular ministry or government office to seek redress, often resorting to civil disobedience or even violence.

And in a country with two million manufacturing workers, labor movements are multiplying in number.
 

Messages Of Islamshahr Protest, IRNA (State News Agency), June 29

The English-language daily Iran News in it Thursday editorial said there are… highly important messages and signals coming out of this latest social unrest [in Islamshahr and Shatareh].

"If these signals and messages are not appropriately and correctly deciphered and read into, similar crises may in future snowball into an immediately destructive avalanche," warned the daily.

It said "the eye-opening fact is that our poverty-stricken people who have densely populated the lower social strata of our society have somehow reached the threshold of their long exhausted tolerance."

The fact remains that they don't shy away from any bodily engagement, commented Iran News, adding that it has come to light that they have nothing to lose and much to gain after all.

The daily said the deepening economic crises and the ever increasing vulnerability of the low-income strata of the society are the alarm bells which have ominously begun to toll.
 

GDP Per Capita Less Than 1972 Level, State TV (Ch. 2), June 20

Morteza Nabavi, member of the State Expediency Council: "We are faced with bitter realities. If we look at the statistics, we see that the GDP and the GNP of our country are in a terrible shape. The GDP per capita is even less than the 1972 level.

"There is a widening class gap between the rich and the poor and this has exacerbated public discontent. The lifestyle of our officials is very much different from that of the general public." 

Back to Brief on Iran