DOMESTIC

Extensive clashes in western Iran

Al-Hayat, London-based Arab newspaper, Jan. 14 - A statement issued in Baghdad by the office of the People's Mojahedin indicates that extensive clashes have taken place between the combatants of this organization and the forces of the Iranian revolutionary Guards in the past three weeks in the provinces of Kermanshah, Ilam and Khuzistan. The statement emphasizes that hundreds of Guards were killed or wounded.

The organization's central HQ in Iran has been quoted as saying that six members of this organization and 15 of its supporters and forces of popular resistance were also killed in cities and villages by Guards Corps and agents of the Intelligence Ministry.

Another onslaught on women,...

Agence France Presse, Jan. 15 - The AFP correspondent observed that the Security Forces arrested improperly veiled women, or those accompanied by men, whom they suspected of not being relatives.

The women were forced onto a mini bus parked near Vanak Square, whose windows were covered with red curtains. Vanak is a well-to-do district in northern Tehran. A police officer oversaw the activities of these armed agents. Several women suspected of breaching the religious-code were arrested accidentally.

A young woman was arrested because she was wearing a bright color garb and a floral scarf. Another young woman was arrested for wearing a black leader coat which did not reach her knees. A young couple, both around 30 years old, were arrested and the woman was taken into the bus to prove that they were married or from the same family. A teenage girl and a boy were also arrested on the sidewalk but were set free when several passers by defended them. Those arrested are fined or taken to the police station.

... Maryam Rajavi condemns

NCR secretariat, Jan. 16 - The Iranian Resistance's President-elect condemned the recent wave of clampdown on Iranian women. Maryam Rajavi called on the international community to break their silence towards the religious, terrorist dictatorship ruling Iran and boycott the mullahs for their endless crimes against women.

Mrs. Rajavi urged the people of Iran to resist the onslaught and insults of the regime's suppressive forces and do not allow a bunch of hoodlums humiliate and harass the respectable women of Iran.

Temporary marriages victimize women

France Soir, Jan. 14 - Temporary marriages which had been discredited in recent years are being debated again because of the mullahs' preference. On the basis of this old initiative in the Shiite tradition, the marriage can extend over a limited period, of even less than 24 hours, allowing men and women to have relationship within a religious framework.

An important Shiite leader, Ayatollah Ha'eri Shirazi, the Friday prayer leader of Shiraz in southern Iran, today called for the revival of temporary marriages, called Seeqeh....

Many Islamic intellectuals oppose this tradition which threatens women. For Iranian opponents, temporary marriages have nothing to do with social progress. It is an excuse for the clerical officials, actually legitimizing their perverted behavior.

Afshin Alavi from the National Council of Resistance says, "Through an assistance network for the poor widows of the victims of war, the regime has organized an official network of prostitution. Worst of all is that "temporary marriage" helps the revolutionary Guards in carrying out a decree according to which virgin girls who get executed go to heaven. Therefore on the night of the execution of Mojahedin girls who are imprisoned without trial, temporary marriages are permitted to cover up rape. Most dreadful of all is that the families of some of the victims receive a marriage gift from the prison officials after their daughter's execution.

Holy month begins with public flogging

Jomhouri Islami, Jan. 16 - Mohammadi, head of the Justice Department of Islamshahr, announced: A man convicted of showing that he is not fasting was flogged in public on the first day of the holy month of Ramadhan.

Suppression

NCR statement, Jan. 18 - Simultaneous with the beginning of the holy fasting month of Ramadhan, the mullahs have launched another campaign of terror and harassment, especially against women and in Tehran, reports from Iran indicate.

In Zahedan, capital of the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan - restless in the past weeks due to widespread discontent over fuel shortages - the regime has launched a "hit maneuver" and creating a de facto state of siege in the city. Special tents have been set up throughout the capital at all the main intersections and all vehicles and pedestrians are checked.

In another development, the mullahs' have ratified another 2.5 billion toumans of budget for suppression under the bogus pretext of "combating America." These desperate efforts by the clerical regime reveal its fear of the escalation of popular protests and uprisings in the new phase of the Resistance inside Iran.

Government employees under poverty line

Reuters, Jan. 14 - An Iranian newspaper [the English-language Tehran Times] called on parliament to revamp the country's tax system which was pushing government employees below the poverty line....

"Most of the government employees live below the poverty line. And some of them have to work on more than one shift to be able to meet the cost of an ordinary life."...

Fund approved to counter U.S. "plots"

Reuters, Jan. 14 - Iran's parliament Tuesday approved a $14.3 million budget for fighting what it called U.S. actions against the Islamic republic, a newspaper said....

The United States imposed a trade and investment ban on Iran in 1995, accusing it of backing "terrorism" and seeking to develop nuclear arms.... Washington stepped up its campaign in August with a new law imposing sanctions on non-U.S. firms which invest $40 million or more in a year in Iran's vital oil and gas industries....

FOREIGN

Iran Trains Super-Gun on Europe

The Sunday Telegraph, Jan. 12 - Security forces have been placed on alert in Britain and on the Continent following reports that Iran is planning a fresh wave of terrorist attacks throughout Europe using purpose-built "super-mortars"....

...The 320mm mortar, which can be dismantled and transported in lorries and is considerably more powerful than the conventional weapon, was used in the Baghdad attack [aimed at the headquarters of the People's Mojahedin of Iran, last week]. It was fired by a delayed fuse from the back of a reinforced lorry parked half a mile from the target....

Western intelligence agencies have been closely monitoring the activities of suspected Iranian terrorist cells in Europe after a prototype of the mortar weapon was discovered in an Iranian freighter...on docking in Antwerp last year. The shipment was bound for Munich....

A team of international intelligence officials, including British and US technical experts, studied the mortar parts for several months and concluded they belonged to an exceptionally powerful weapon Iran has developed with terrorist operations in mind. American intelligence officials fear the weapon might be used to attack US bases in the Middle East....

According to the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which has compiled a detailed dossier on the super-mortar, 20 sets of the weapon have been manufactured in the past six months on the orders of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's hard-line spiritual leader. Mr. Khamenei...ordered the country's military experts to manufacture the weapon after more conventional operations, such as assassinations and car bombings, failed to silence Iran's critics....

FEATURE

Iran's everyday terror blocks out the West

The Journal of Commerce, Jan. 6, Tehran - There are voices of anger. There are voices of friendship. But the first voice an American hears in Iran is the voice of fear.

It starts on the flight from London, hours before the jet touches down in Tehran. A middle-aged woman, seeing your guidebook, whispers an introduction of her own: "They will watch you everywhere. They will control everything."...

Critics of Iran's fundamentalist government condemn the abuses in its prisons. But for citizens, there is everyday terror that fills their homes and streets. Iranian women are its most visible victims.... The chador may also represent the greatest challenge for Iran's government. The total isolation enforced on women and young people can't ever be at peace with the Western world....

...the lot of Iran's soaring population is overwhelmingly poor. The government has been printing money, contributing to a 50% annual inflation rate. The indexed wage for urban laborers is the equivalent of about $50 a week. In the country's free-trade zones, it is half that. Despite its oil wealth, Iran's per capita GDP is on a par with long-embargoed Iraq. The rial, Iran's currency, which once traded at 70 to the dollar, is now officially offered to foreigners at 3,000. Cabdrivers...ply a black market exchange at 4,300 to the dollar and more....

...Foreigners quickly learn the difference between being followed and being watched by Iran's many varieties of police....

There are traffic police and city police, hotel security and internal security, plainclothes surveillance, diplomatic security, Islamic culture and guidance officials, the army, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard and a special elite force. Not to mention immigration, airport security, customs and passport control. A visitor meets them all.

Yet, a foreign ministry official raises his eyebrows when it is suggested that Iran is a police state....

With such a widespread police presence, nearly all of Iran's official goals can be accomplished through fear, except for those that depend on economic development....

...but the familiar pattern of Western selling and sourcing will never take place without sweeping social change....

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