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News & Views Opposition condemns string of murders in Iran DUBAI, Dec 13 (Reuters) - Iran's main exiled opposition group called on Sunday for an international fact-finding mission to go to Iran to investigate a string of mystery deaths of dissidents and writers. A statement by the National Council of Resistance said its President Massoud Rajavi ``urged international human rights organisations and bodies to condemn these heinous murders and called for the dispatch to Iran of an international fact-finding team to investigate these murders.'' ``He (Rajavi) said it is imperative that the United Nations Security Council address these murders,'' the statement said. The call by the group, linked to the Iraq-based Mujahideen Khalq, echoed similar calls by other exiled Iranian groups. The body of a third Iranian secularist intellectual, Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh, was found at the weekend. Family members told Reuters they had identified the body saying it showed signs he had been strangled. Pouyandeh, a writer and translator, had been last seen alive leaving his office on December 9. That same day the body of dissident poet Mohammad Mokhtari was discovered, and local press reports quoted a relative as saying he, too, had been strangled. Dissident Javad Sharif was found dead last week in what friends say were suspicious circumstances. A fourth intellectual, Pirouz Davani, is missing and feared dead. Veteran opposition leader Dariush Forouhar and his wife were found stabbed to death at their home in Tehran in November. No one has been charged in any of the deaths. Iranian officials have vowed to investigate the deaths. Many officials have blamed outside forces and foreign enemies for what they say is a terror campaign designed to destabilise Iran in general and the reforms of moderate President Mohammad Khatami. * Iran News
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