Two young men aged 21 and 23 were hanged on Monday in Tehran’s Qasr Prison, according to state-run newspapers. This brings the number of officially-announced executions in the past week alone to eleven. The death sentences include the stoning to death of a 30-year-old woman. This is the thirteenth stoning to death being carried out during Khatami’s presidency. Six of the victims have been women.

Monday’s executions raise the number of officially-announced executions in the year 2000 to 127.
 

Threats Mounting To IRNA Officials Once Again, State News Agency, IRNA, July 19

TEHRAN - Threats to the officials of the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) have been resumed once again following the release of a recent statement by the agency's public relations office which broke the silence over the recent attitude and assaults on the agency by the afternoon daily Kayhan.

A spokesman for the public relations office said that "organized threatening phone calls have flooded the agency."

"The old-fashioned organized move is quite known to the agency," said the spokesman, adding that the staff of IRNA were subject to threats and pressures in the course of elections in the past.

He further remarked that the coordinated attempts by the media section of the violence-seeking faction went to such an extent that some people stormed the agency and threatened to throw officials of the news agency out of window.

The spokesman said that pictures available at the agency show that the monopolist Mafia and those advocating violence are only a "handful of known agents" who are being supported by certain power centers and are seeking domination over the information flow in the country with no fear of being confronted.
 

Turkey Concerned Over Iranian Ballistic Missile, Associated Press, July 19

ANKARA - Turkey reacted Wednesday to Iran's test of a medium range missile by saying it was concerned about the proliferation of such weapons in the Middle East.

"Iran's second trial of the Shahab-3 was met with" concern, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Turkey's relations with Iran have often been tense. Ankara has accused Iran of trying to further Islamic fundamentalism in Turkey, a predominantly Muslim but secular state.
 

Hitler In A Turban, The Washington Times, July 19

[The following is excerpts from an article by Dr. Arnold Beichman, a research fellow at the Hoover Institute.]

Whatever the outcome at Camp David, Iran has just announced that it will not tolerate any kind of peace, let alone an armistice, in the Middle East. The ayatollah theocracy, which runs the most efficient terrorist apparatus in the world, made this bellicose announcement in dramatic, shot-across-the-bow fashion: It successfully test-fired a ballistic missile with an 800-mile range carrying a 1-ton warhead.

This test-firing of the Shahab-3 missile, which could reach either Israel or Saudi Arabia, where American troops are stationed, in little more than a minute, is, first, a direct slap at President Clinton's Mideast diplomacy and, second, highlights the bankruptcy of the administration's policy of sucking up to nonexisting or powerless "moderates" in Iran. It is also a warning to Yasser Arafat and the PLO not to make a deal with Israel under any circumstances — or else….

Iran's dictatorship today is mired in a pre-revolutionary crisis in which people, especially university students, are turning out almost daily in protest parades. Iran's economy is in shambles despite increased oil revenues. Internal terror against the Iranian people…

The Iranian missile threat is a calamitous event, the dangers of which cannot be exaggerated. Iran has already developed or will soon develop, with help from Russia, China and North Korea, weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivery within 800 miles of the launch site. Iran's xenophobic rulers are fanatics — think of the fatwa against the novelist, Salman Rushdie — who combine ancient belief systems with ultramodern weaponry. They are ready to sacrifice 65 million Iranians and the rest of the Middle East in their quest for sectarian domination.

Israel knows all this; Saudi Arabia knows all this.

The White House knows all this; the national security adviser, the secretary of state, Congress — everybody — knows that Iran's Supreme Spiritual Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 61, is Hitler in a turban. Or is that too impolite to say? Wake up, Mr. Clinton, and let's hear the true story…

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