AP, Mar. 29 - Human rights remain a "significant concern" in Iran seventeen years after the Islamic revolution, a UN human rights report concluded Friday.

Suspicious disappearances and deaths, religious intolerance and the flawed legal system were all areas that needed further investigation, said UN human rights envoy Maurice Copithorne. He said the term "human rights" was not widely understood in the country as promoting the dignity of the human being but was considered a "political tool" in the hands of Western powers. Copithorne, a former Canadian Foreign Office official, was appointed in March last year to investigate Iran in a UN procedure reserved for the worst human rights violators.

Rajavi: UN investigator Iran report deficient

NCR Secretariat, Mar. 29 - NCR President Massoud Rajavi, described Mr. Copithorne's report to the fifty-second session of the commission as wholly inadequate. Although this report refers to cases of abuses of the most basic principles of human rights, the lack of a fair trial and the suppression of religious minorities, in no way does it reflect the grave dimensions of human rights violations in Iran, especiall y during the past year, Mr. Rajavi said.

Mr. Rajavi stressed: The bloody crackdown of popular protests, including the April 1995 protest in south Tehran and March 1996 unrest in Bonab, northwestern Iran, the adoption of new suppressive laws by the mullahs' Majlis and the staging of scores of military maneuvers in most Iranian cities dramatically escalated the atmosphere of repression throughout the country. NCR President said that 1995 proved to be one of the worst years of the mullahs' evil reign in Iran.

Mr. Rajavi noted that since the start of 1995, terrorists dispatched by the Khomeini regime had murdered eight members and sympathizers of the Iranian Resistance and scores of Iranian dissidents and members of religious minorities abroad.

He called on the UN Human Rights Commission to adopt a strongly-worded resolution condemning the Khomeini regime's violations of the most basic rights of the Iranian people and export of terrorism and fundamentalism beyond Iran's borders.

China's missiles sale condemned

NCR Secretariat, Mar. 29 - In a telegram to the UN Secretary General and permanent members of the Security Council, NCR President Massoud Rajavi condemned China's sale of Cruise missiles to the Khomeini regime and demanded a halt to the sale of weapons , including missile technology, Iran's ruling mullahs.

There have been a number of reports in recent weeks raising concern about China's sale of long-range missiles and advanced weaponry to the Khomeini regime. The latest was the delivery of guided missiles to the Tehran regime.

Mojahedin hold maneuvers

Suddeutsche Zeitung, March 29 - Several thousand rebels of the exiled Iranian opposition group Mujahideen Khalq staged military exercises on Wednesday on a piece of scrub land in Iraq close to the border with Iran.

Foreign reporters taken by the group to Ashraf Camp, 120 km (70 miles) northeast of Baghdad reported women in green head scarves and khaki fatigues commanded most of the exercises which included a show of infantry troops, rocket launchers, British-made Chieftain tanks, ZSU-23 anti-aircraft guns, 155-mm howitzers and 130-mm field guns.

"We are fully confident to overthrow the mullahs' regime" operation commander of the NLA, Fatemeh Kheradmand, said.

The group's commanders said their organization was financed by Iranians who oppose Tehran's government inside and outside Iran and by companies run by the group in various countries. Curbing Mujahideen activities in Iraq is one of Tehran's conditions for a normalization of ties with Baghdad.

Asylum-seekers' arrest in Turkey denounced

NCR Secretariat, Mar. 31 - The National Council of Resistance strongly condemned the arrest and assaulting of Iranian asylum seekers in Turkey. It called on international human rights organizations and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to secure the release of those arrested.

Rather than arresting and beating defenseless Iranian asylum-seekers, the statement said, the Turkish government should arrest and prosecute the mullahs' terrorists and close down their embassy and consulates which according to the Turkish officials a nd media are responsible for nearly 40 terrorist operations against Turkish and Iranian nationals in that country.

FOREIGN

Stop critical dialogue with mullahs

AGI, Apr. 1 - "Dialogue with illegitimate mullahs'' regime runs counter to Iranian people highest interests and contradicts democratic values." On the eve of the trip by the Troika to Tehran, a message of warning comes from Massoud Rajavi, President of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

In a letter to Susanna Agnelli, the Foreign Minister of Italy and to EU foreign ministers, Rajavi urged the European Union to replace its "critical dialogue" with a firm policy Recalling the "EU's futile experience" last spring to revoke the death decree against Salman Rushdie, Rajavi accused the mullahs of "creating false hopes" among European nations to prevent them from joining the US sanctions.

Rajavi writes: "The EU's demand today that the Khomeini regime condemn terrorism in Israel [like Rushdie's case] is of the same nature. In a country where the massacre of innocent people is described as 'divine retribution,' one cannot expect but a neg ative response." Decisive Iran policy in order

Trouw, Mar. 28 - Hopes that Iran would change its policy are very dim. The assassination of Iranian dissidents abroad, the fatwa to murder Salman Rushdie, Iran's offering of military training to the Bosnian military and the discovery of explosiv e in an Iranian ship in Antwerp are all great warnings to European leaders that they must adopt a decisive policy agaisnt Iran.

Export of terrorism

Observer, Mar. 24 - A boy of nine is being used as a diplomatic weapon by Bahrain ruler in his attempt to convince the world that Iran is behind a terrorist campaign to destabilize the Gulf. Ali Abdel Jabber, suffering from second-degree burns, was injured when three masked men threw petrol bombs into his class room in the Bahraini village of Samahij last Wednesday... Khalifa's government claims the daily attacks on public buildings, including hotels, schools shopping malls and electricity generating stations, are part of an Iranian-inspired conspiracy to topple the six Gulf regimes, including Saudi Arabia and to creat e Ayatollah-style Islamic republic in their place.

Iran arms Turkish terrorists

Melliat, Mar. 26 - The leader of Turkish Hezbollah had met four Iranian diplomats, Mohsen Azad, Majid Shadgar, Ali Ashrafi and Mohammad-Reza Behrooz Manesh with the aim of conducting terrorist attacks on Turkish soil. Mohsen Azad is deputy consu lar in Istanbul. Majid Shadgar in the administrative officer at the embassy in Ankara. He received his diplomatic passport on September 16, 1992, and entered Turkey a month later. The report also mentions Ali Ashrafi as the press attachˇ in Ankara. He car ries the diplomatic passport number 11626 and entered Turkey on October 29, 1993. The leader of the Turkish Hezbollah had confessed to received a large quantity of weapons, including handguns, medium caliber weapons, Uzi sub-machine-guns and mortars from Iranian diplomats.

Mullahs amassing chemical weapons

UPI, Mar. 28 - The US Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, described Iran as a major source of concern as far as amassing chemical weapons are concerned. He said that Iran was involved in a major effort to stockpile chemical weapons. The United States has accused Iran of supporting international terrorism and attempts to acquire nuclear weaponry.

Iran spymaster wanted in Austria

Al Riyadh, Mar. 21 - A leading Austrian newspaper accused the Iranian Intelligence Minister, Ali Fallahian, of being responsible in the assassination of a number of leaders and commanders of the Iranian opposition in 1989 in Vienna.

The daily, Courier, reported that all indications show that Fallahian, whom the German Judiciary implicated for direct responsibility in the assassination of a number of opposition leaders in Mykonos restaurant in Berlin in September 1992 as well as in 22 other terrorist operations, is responsible for the physical elimination and assassination of the Kurdish leader, Dr. Abdol-Rahman Qassemlou and two of his aides on July 13, 1989 in Vienna. The newspaper notes that intelligence information confirm that an Iranian diplomat by the name of Ahmad who had been working at the Iranian embassy in Vienna from 1989 until 1992, had direct links with these terrorist operation. His ties with Iran's intel ligence services (SAVAK) gave him close access to Ali Fallahian, enabling the criminal to escape under diplomatic cover without being apprehended by Austria's secret service.

The Turkish security systems also pointed the finger at this diplomat who was previously working at the Iranian consulate in Istanbul. FEATURE

"Uncritical Dialogue: Bonn immoral Iran policy fails,"

Tages Zeitung, March 30, 1996
By Georg Baltissen

Despite all the effort, it is not the CIA which has put forth critical dialogue with the clerical regime. The right has been reserved for the investigative judge in the German Federal Court of Justice. The warrant for the arrest of Ali Fallahian, the I ranian Minister of Intelligence, leaves no room for playing around by the German Foreign Minister. This confirmed suspicion concerning state-sponsored terrorism which the judge has testified to, eliminates the need for the scheduled trip by the Troika to Tehran next week. It would have been better to cancel the trip. The EU should have explained withou t ifs and buts that Iran is among those countries who not only supports the use of terrorism against those with opposing views, but that since many years ago, it has been masterminding the elimination of its political opponents.

It is troubling that as the head of the intelligence services, BND, and the Foreign Minister, Mr. Klaus Kinkel has been aware of these facts... Despite such knowledge, he has totally stuck to the policy of dialogue with Tehran and has damaged the Germa n foreign policy. His proposed foreign policy has not even once stopped the operations by the Iranian secret service's death squads on German soil. On the other hand, in view of Kinkel's moral and political mistakes, Kinkel must removed his hat. As far as the red card in t he Sharm el-Sheikh Conference which ended yesterday in Washington, is concerned Kinkel is only to blame. As a foreign power which supports a terrorist country, Germany is facing an outrage at the international level. The writer Salman Rushdie who has been threatened to death has since many years ago called for a more decisive approach to Tehran.

But why does a person who does not listen to the CIA even once, at least listen to a persecuted author. After the warrant for Fallahian arrest two weeks ago, Kinkel has been acting as if he is deaf and dumb. But, If the Chancellor does want or cannot bring some sense into him, he will no loner be spared...

When the issue leads to human rights and the fight against terrorism, the German government must optimistically be pushed to pursue this matter.

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