DOMESTIC

Gang raid on park

Tehran, July 8 - A group of hoodlums acting under the name of Hizbollah, raided the Sorkh-e Hessar Park on Friday, July 4. They pursued and interrogated young couples on their family relationships and arrested a number of people. In several cases, clashes broke out between them and the people they had bothered.

106,000 imprisoned in a year

Tehran radio, July 10 - More than 200 tons of drugs were discovered last year and 106,000 persons arrested and imprisoned in this connection.

Investigation urged into suspicious murder of writer

Voice of America, July 11 - The International Pen Club and Amnesty International called yesterday for immediate and impartial investigations into the death of Ibrahim Zalzadeh. Zalzadeh was the owner of Ebtekar publishing company and editor of Me'yar magazine. His family found him in a mortuary. He had been stabbed in several parts of his body. One of the Iranian newspapers wrote that Zalzadeh had been killed by thieves. Amnesty International says however that this conclusion is not based on comprehensive investigations. Amnesty International says it has received reports that Zalzadeh had been detained by agents of the Intelligence and Security Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Families try to make ends meet

Iran daily, July 1 - Lack of balance between the income and basic expenditures of Iranian families has forced many parents to try hard to make ends meet.

Pedram Bozorgi, an eight grader, says: "My father is a white collar worker. He receives a salary of 450,000 rials per month. He also buys and sells cars, which helps him earn up to 1,200,000 rials in some months. Despite this, our income is still not sufficient. It is two months that my mother has also started a job in an office. With this trend, I think I will have to work during summer vacations, too." Pedram says, "We have to pay 450,000 rials for rent. The rest is spent on food. We can't save anything at all."

Velayati blamed for lacking strategy

Tehran, news agencies, July 13 - Abbas Maleki, deputy Foreign Minister for Research, told reporters: On the eve of the 21st century, no country can afford to have a foreign ministry which is passive and lacks strategy. The future Foreign Minister must agree with the views of the new president.

INTERNATIONAL

Jacques Long calls for Iran's boycott

AFP, July 10 - Simultaneous with the reception for Salman Rushdie, Jacques Long, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the French National Assembly, declared that he wishes to see trade and financial sanctions imposed on Iran.

Upon hearing Salman Rushdie's testimony against European policy on Iran, Jacques Long said, "The time has come to take action." Jacques Long said he supports "trade and economic sanctions" against Iran and called on the European Union to "take a stand which would indicate that Europe and France advocate human rights."

"Before anything else, it must be shown to this terrorist regime that France and other European countries have a common demand and are united in their will and determination to defend freedoms and human rights," he added. Salman Rushdie urged Europe not to send their ambassadors to Tehran so long as Tehran has not lifted his death decree. Rushdie called on Europe to follow the example of the United States and unilaterally boycott Iran.

He stressed, "So long as the Iranian government has not given an official and written guarantee withdrawing the fatwa, the ambassadors must not return to Iran." Rushdie added, "After the recent election of Mohammad Khatami... it is very necessary that this issue be placed as a main subject and a priority on the agenda of talks between Europe and Iran."

France expells Iran's Intelligence Agent

AP, July 9 - France has expelled an Iranian engineer accused of spying and acting as Tehran's link to French Muslim militants, an Iranian dissident group said Wednesday.

Mohammed Reza Karami Mowlai was expelled Sunday for stealing French scientific secrets, according to the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a French-based group opposed to Iran's Islamist government. The French Foreign and Interior ministries would not comment. Mowlai was an "agent of the Intelligence Ministry of the Tehran regime," charged with passing on scientific information to Iran, the dissident group said. It did not specify the nature of the scientific information.

Mowlai also was head of a Muslim group in the eastern French city of Nancy, the group said, and acted as a liaison between Iran and French Islamic militants.

Footprints of the mullah

Der Spiegel, July 7 - Once again, there is another move on the case of "Lockerbie". The Federal Criminal Bureau, just as the Federal Intelligence Service and the BND, are engaged in this move. The governor's office of Essen province was secretly notified, as was the Chancellor's Office in Bonn. Most of the correspondences are ordered confidential. The reason for these activities is a new witness who has started to give detailed information on behind-the-scene affairs of the terrorist plot...

What this man, one of the founders of the Iranian secret services, VEVAK, has to offer is like dynamite for foreign policy. Mesbahi who fled to Europe in 1996 gives details about the explosives placed in the cargo section of the American airliner. This contradicts the American and British theories which blame only Libya as the operative agent. Mesbahi says the mullahs in Tehran are the men behind the scene. Those days, Khomeini asked for help from Libya and the top terrorist volunteer, Abu Nidal.

The scenario offered by Mesbahi seems reliable. The plot must have been a retaliatory measure for the Iranian passenger airliner which was hit in 1988 over the Strait of Hormuz. The airplane with 290 passengers was shot down by two rockets fired by the American Vincennes which had mistaken it for a military airplane. Mesbahi told investigators that Khomeini had personally called for retaliation at that time. Ali Akbar Velayati, the Foreign Minister, negotiated with Libya and Abu Nidal's men about the type of the plot.

London Daily Telegraph, July 8 - Relatives of the Lockerbie bombing victims called for a Government inquiry yesterday into new evidence that Iran might have been responsible for the attack that killed 270 peopleŠ The information, reported in Der Spiegel, the German magazine, comes from a former Iranian spyŠ

Abolghassem Mesbahi, the co-founder of the Iranian intelligence service, is said to have told German investigatorsŠ the attack was planned by Ali Akbar Velayati, Iran's Foreign Minister, and Abu Nidal, the Libyan terroristŠ [The London Times reported on July 8 that Š Mr. Mesbahi was indisputably a senior figure in the Vevak secret police and is regarded by the Germans as a credible witness. Identified only as Source C, he testified in the Berlin trial this year of a group of Iranian hitmen accused, and sentenced, for the murder of Kurdish dissidents.

Mr. Mesbahi's inside knowledge allowed the German judges to declare that the higher echelons of the Iranian leadership knew about the plot to kill the Kurds in a Berlin restaurant. That triggered a crisis between Iran and the European Union which is still simmering.]

AFP, July 10 - The main Iranian opposition movement, the National Council of Resistance, blamed Iran for the attempt against Pan Am Boeing over Lockerbie.

The National Council of Resistance explains that Hossein Marvastizadeh, an agent of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, was in charge of passing the explosives from the transit [in Frankfurt Airport] at the time of the incident. Officially, he was the chief of protection for Iran Air in Frankfurt, and enjoyed full cooperation of Talebian, who at the time headed the Iran Air office in that city. Marvastizadeh today heads Yazd Airport in central Iran. The Iranian Resistance had already announced that Iran was the fountainhead of this "anti-human crime."

FEATURE

Women armed against mullahs

A lively report from a unique, coed and egalitarian army, by Fulvia Alberti

Femina magazine, Switzerland, July 6 (Excerpts)

It is 3 o'clock in the afternoon. The sun shines its 50-degree heat over this camp, north of Baghdad. Except for the thin Eucalyptus trees which surround a little garden full of yellow bushes, it is plain desert as far as eyes can see. At the same time, Maryam, 31, a former office employee in Tehran, speaks delightfully of her arrival three months ago in the Zahra Rajabi camp: "The first thing I did was to sing aloud. Then I picked up a little stone and kissed it." The camp which is to train the new arrivals and the special forces, belongs to the National Liberation Army of Iran, the armed branch of the National Council of Resistance of Iran. It is not clear how many of these camps exist along the 1,200-km Iraqi border with Iran, and how many men and women fighters make up this armored army which seems very well equipped at first glance... Whatever the figures, this is a unique army. Women and men are in contact. All the jobs are done while complete equality is observed, and the hierarchy in this army has been reduced to the lowest level necessary.

Married life is banned in this army and children have been sent away. Every one eats together, and all the services are provided by men....

In a word, this army is amazingly calm. Its members are so content that not even a single person is found to be critical of anything or complain about all the emotional and material deprivations of life in this desert land.

After a two-day trip - waiting at the border and 1000-km travel by car (due to the sanctions) in a desert land where nothing exists but sand and stones - have we arrived in a strange, utopian city?

At any rate, every one here, is busy learning and practicing for a hopeful tomorrow, when the Mojahedin will replace the mullahs' regime and establish democracy in Iran where women play a prominent role...

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