Maryam Rajavi: Iranian regime speaks of Islam, but suppresses people inside Al-Ahram, Egypt, June 29 -The largest congress of Iranian opponents and Resistance was held in Dortmund's Westfallenhalen in Germany, by the National Council of Resistance... Although Mrs. Rajavi was not present --due to the measures of the German government banning her entry into Germany-- the presence of Iranians and opponents of the Iranian regime was not affected by this problem and all of them followed Mrs. Rajavi's speec h which was directly beamed into the hall via satellite and also for Iranians (inside Iran)... In her speech, Mrs. Rajavi examined the record of Iran's dictatorial regime. She defended human rights and the Iranian people, calling everyone to cherish freedom. She said: "Love of freedom is the driving force of our Resistance, and without it, resistan ce against this regime would have been impossible. Our nation has paid a heavy price for freedom, sacrificing 100,000 lives."

Mrs. Rajavi emphasized that the Iranian regime speaks of Islam, while it is the worst enemy of Islam and Muslims, and it suppresses the people and exports terrorism and fundamentalism abroad...

Bonn, London, As-Sharq ol-Awsat (Saudi Arabia), June 29 - Sources in Bonn said the day before yesterday that an assassination squad had been discovered. The team was neutralized when Washington gave the necessary information to the government of German y. This is why the German officials believe that the Iranian embassy in Bonn, where 200 employees work, has turned into a center for infiltration into the ranks of immigrants and leaders of the Iranian opposition in exile. In the past ten years, (Germany) witnessed assassinations of six Iranian oppositionists who were killed by teams Tehran had sent. So far, an Iranian intelligence official and three members of the Lebanese Hezbollah have been put on trial on the charge of some of these assassinations ...

The Financial Times, June 30, 1995 - Iran faces a political and economic crisis which threatens the survival of the state in its current form, according to a study to be published next week by the International Institute of Strategic Studies... "With its economy in free fall, growing popular alienation, a political system facing a crisis of legitimacy, and problems with the outside world, the Islamic Republic of Iran is at a crossroads," the study says.

"Whether it survives the crisis is open to question," adds the author, Mr. Ahmed Hashimi, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. While noting Iran purchased ballistic missiles from countries such as China and North Korea, he argues "intense political factionalism... limits (Iran's) ability to maintain the direction and co-ordination necessary for a nuclear weapons programme."

Arguing that western analysts underestimate the depth of Iran's problems, the author argues that "incohrenece is... starkly evident in Iran's defence policies (and) the armed forces and defence industries are a microcosm of the inefficient, factionalis ed and ramshackle state they serve." The failure of Iran's conventional rearmament might prompt Tehran to emphasise weapons of mass destruction. But any nuclear arms programme was likely to be subject of furious arguments.

Tehran, June 26 (Reuters) - Annual inflation hit a record high of 58.8 percent in Iran in the month to May 20, according to Central Bank figures, a newspaper reported on Monday.... Annual inflation is put officially at a conservative 40 percent, but Iranian media have reported the price of some basic foodstuffs have doubled or tripled within months. The government in May announced wide-ranging new regulations banning all foreign exchange dealings at rates higher than a fixed level of 3,000 rials per dollar.

Salam, Tehran daily, June 20 - Iran's cash balance is some 60 billion rials, according to the Minister of Finance, and this is the main reason for the economic crisis.. The correlation between negotiable papers and the delirious rise in cash balance has plunged to its lowest in the past seven years to 50%.

NICOSIA, June 28 (Reuters) - Iranian trade laws which make exporters of non-oil goods repatriate all of their foreign currency earnings are harming Iranian business and should be reviewed, a leading Tehran newspaper said on Wednesday.... "Constant change in rules and regulations and the distrust they engender are among the worst economic plagues," the official news agency IRNA quoted (the English-language Iran News) as saying.

The government in May effectively abolished the free foreign exchange market....

IRTV, June 29 - From 170,000 students in Qazvin (west of Tehran), less than 10 percent enjoy cultural, artistic and athletic facilities.

Iran, IRNA's daily newspaper, July 2 - In Orumieh (center of western Azarbaijan Province) an elderly woman sold her four grand-children aging 4 to 14, for 60,000 rials. The children were addicted.

Agence France Presse, June 28, Tehran - Director of the department of movies in the Ministry of Culture, announced that Iranian officials will show harsher opposition to the production and export of movies which do not conform to the Islamic criteria a nd present a "negative picture" of Iran.

[In an interview with the Ressalat daily newspaper,] Hamid Khabbazian commented, "The movies produced in recent years in Iran lack the national and Islamic identity," and "do not reflect" the "sacred values of the [1979] Revolution..."

No movies can be produced, broadcast or exported in Iran without the permission of the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance...

More than 200 movie directors, producers and actors signed an open letter, demanding the government to reduce its "interference" and restrictions on movie production.

Ressalat, June 28 - Although such conferences are suitable containers for exchanging ideas and experiences and our active participation in them seems to be indispensable, but we should not forget that Islam has its own special views in every fie ld, equality, development, peace and other subjects....

In 1962, the Imam [Khomeini] protested the incumbent government's move over provincial elections: "The country's official religion has become a plaything in the hands of the Government which leads the conferences towards the equality of men and women's rights. Islam has issued a specific decree on anyone who believes in the equal rights for women, in inheritance, divorce and etc. as stipulated among the necessary rules of Islam, and then violates them"...

The necessity of women's presence in the society and their vigilance and awareness is well noticed by the leaders of the Islamic Republic. They believe that women must take part in the political and social life and in the construction of the government structure. But there is a difference between being equal and being identical. In Imam's view announcing that men and women are identical was an affront to Islam and the Qoran."

United Nations, Israeli radio, June 30 - Following the objection of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Communist China and several other countries, the United Nations decided to ban participation of 19 women's rights groups in the World Conference in Beijin g. 761 non-governmental organizations from many countries will be participating in the conference to be held next fall.

Israeli radio, July 2 - Iranian circles in Europe today said the Islamic Republic is planning the public stoning of two women in near future, on the charge of illicit relations... The two women, Saba Abdoli and Zeinab Haydari, were caught on May 8 and are going to be stoned in upcoming days in the city of Ilam Gharb.

Time, U.S., June 26 - How potent is Iran's variety of militant political Islam? To Bill Clinton and Warren Christopher, it is one of the most dangerous forces on earth. But listen to what an Iranian housewife named Hafezeh has to say....

"I was sixteen when I joined the Revolutionary Guards [in 1979]," she said. "I used to go out in the patrol car with the sisters [female revolutionary guards]. They were looking for women who weren't wearing proper Islamic covering. They threw acid in their faces or said, "Let me take off your lipstick," and cut their lips with a razor hidden in a Kleenex..." It sickened us... In Iran today, many men and women like Hafezeh maintain their faith in Islam but have distanced themselves from the revolution and its strict way of life. Pervasive corruption and a troubled economy have deepened disillusionment, and in recent months ser ious riots have broken out in several cities... But however real the threat from Tehran may be, one factor is not widely understood: the revolution is decaying. Iran is already severly undermining itself.... A young woman in a clothing store in the shantytown of Islam Shahr, where riots occurred in April, gives a gruesome example. Pretending to examine merchandise, she whispers anxiously, "My neighbors buried their 16-year-old son last week. The government ma de them pay 8 million rials [$2,700] to get back his body. We don't know if he was killed in the riots or later."....

Le Point, Paris, July 1 - For the first time, Hamas, the fundamentalist Palestinian movement, received training in Iran, where a leader of the organization, Emad Al-Alami, resides after deportation from Jordan last April. Eight of them passed so me training in Sudan before their three months in Iran. Three of the above-mentioned activists are Ahmad Nessivi, Jamal Mousa, and Abdol-Fattah Mohammad, who have been recently seen in Labanon's Becca Valley.

Paris, June 15, Agence France Presse - The TTU Strategic Information weekly believes that the Iranian National Security Council has recently allocated 3 billion dollars to 20 fundamentalist movements, who call themselves radical Islamists, and are most ly present in the Arab countries.

From among the parties and movements which receive aid, TTU named, "Palestinian Hamas ($30 million), PFLP-GC of Ahmad Jebrail ($3 million), Islamic Jihad of Fat-hi Shaqaqi in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon ($10 million per month), Movement of Islamic Unity (Tripoli), Islamic Society (Tripoli, Seida), Fatah Intifada of Abu Mousa."

According to the TTU, "Iran aids four fundamentalist groups in Egypt, some through the refugee movements in the United States (Sheikh Abdul-Rahman), five Islamist organizations in Iraq and the Popular Arab and Islamic Congress in the Sudan."

Channel Four, U.K., June 22 - Interview with Hazhir Teymourian: It might be al-Jamaet el-Eslamiah or the Islamic Assoication or underground group of Domestic Opposition to Hosni Mubarak's government. But he himself, the president suspects they have bee n supported financially at least by Iranians and are given some weaponry by the Sudanese.

I believe that, for example, the smuggling into Addiss Ababa at the height of international conference like this, with all the security implies, of heavy weaponary such a RPG, does require a cooperation of some foreign embassy.

International Review, Geneva, Summer 1995 - Once again, Iran's chemical warfare program has come to public attention. A recent report from Germany indicates that, in only a few short months, Iran will complete a new complex for the manufacture of two of the most deadly nerve gases in the world, Sarin and Tabun....

The report comes from the German intelligence service. It states that Indian and Iranian companies are searching for a German engineering firm to assist in obtaining materials crucial to the chemical production of these two odorless and colorless gases , a single drop of which can kill. An intelligence report on the same subject came from another German agency last November, again linking Indian firms with an Iranian installation believed to be producing chemical weapons.The Indian firms have denied the charge. They say they are helping to build only a "pesticide" factory near Tehran....

The Iranians deny they even have chemical weapons. The Tehran Voice of the Islamic Republic tells another story, however. In a broadcast last September on Iraniand Falaq-2 missile maneuvers in the Persian Gulf, they said the maneuvers concluded with "t he implementation of a chemical offensive and counteroffensive."...

It is also certain that Iran'a plans include chemical and biological weapons. The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service reports that both the nerve agent Surin and mustard gas are being produced in Iran, along with the mines, bombs and other delivery sy stems that go with their deliveries. American sources have identified a large chemical warfare plant just south of Tehran. The British place another installation near Semnan. This plant produces 5 tons of nerve gas a month. The gas is then shipped to a SC UD-B missile plant near Isfahan and packed into warheads...

Tehran, Kayhan Havaii, June 21 - The branches of Iranian banks in New York and Los Angeles discontinued their regular activities in protest to Clinton's hostile policies toward the Islamic Republic of Iran. Melli, Saderat and Sepah banks which h eld branches in New York and Los Angeles are already refusing to receive or send any money transfers. Following the economic embargo imposed on Iran, Iranian banks based in the United States faced new restrictions since June 6, to the extent that they were unable to carry on their duties, a Central Bank official said. They decided to resolve their problem s with the US government through their legal attorneys.

Iran Farda, Tehran-based monthly magazine, July 1 - In all of their remarks, Iran's rulers have emphasized that the country will not be hurt by the US economic embargo and there is no need for concern. But if the rulers think that economic competition of Europe and Japan and their conflict of interests with the United States will stop these countries from joining the US, they are wrong...

Europe and Japan joined the United States against Iraq while in contrast to the Islamic Republic, Iraq had many common positions with Europe. For example, Iraq did not publicly demand annihilation of Israel. Iraq did not have problems like the decree o n Salman Rushdie. And Iraq was not accused of assassinating its opponents abroad [**Iran Farda's editor is a staunch advocate of the mullahs' regime.]

In an interview with the CNN, Rafsanjani tried to bring his suppressive regime out of international isolation, a consequence of 14 years of its inhuman and terrorist conduct. According to the regime's state-radio on July 2, Rafsanjani claimed:

The United States illogical and incorrect decisions against the Islamic Republic of Iran are a consequence of its lack of knowledge of the Islamic Revolution and receipt of false and wrong infromation from counter-revolutionary sources and the Zionists . Rafsanjani said the United States' embargo of the mullahs' regime did not have any effect: "The United States' latest decision not only did not have any effect on the economy of our country, but it helped improve our national solidarity in carrying out better and stronger economic decisions. We are not concerned about future, and we believe that Iran's economy is invincible."

Despite this, the CNN correspondent, Christian Amanpour, told Rafsanjani that most of the people she had spoken to in her latest trip to Tehran, were very disenchanted with the regime. She asked Rafsanjani how he could explain this? "We do not see thos e people you have met. In our view, the Iranian general public are those who received me very well in my visit to Tabriz. We believe it is them who comprise the mass of the Iranian people.

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