1. In the southern city of Shiraz, polling stations are reported to be deserted in an unprecedented way. Despite strong pressures by the regime to compel people to vote, the people of Shiraz have not participated in the farce election.
2. Leaflets calling on the people to boycott the elections have been distributed over a wide area of the city of Ilam and other regions in Ilam Province. In Ilam the turnout this morning has been extremely low and polling stations are deserted.
3. The Interior Ministry has used dozens of buses belonging to government agencies to ferry large crowds from towns and villages in the vicinity of Tehran to a few selected polling stations in Tehran in an attempt to set up showpiece places for filming and for deceiving foreign journalists.
4. The clerical regime has deployed its regular army units, in addition to the Revolutionary Guards, the State Security Forces and the paramilitary Bassij and Intelligence Ministry forces, in some parts of the country, including Kurdistan and Kermanshah, to suppress any public protests.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
February 18, 2000
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