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News & Views Mystery murders shake Iran reformers By Jonathan Lyons TEHRAN, Dec 13 (Reuters) - The body of a third Iranian secularist intellectual was found at the weekend, the latest in a string of mystery deaths that has exposed President Mohammed Khatami's lack of control over security and law enforcemement. Family members told Reuters they had identified the body of Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh, 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. No one has been charged in any of the deaths. ``Last night we got a call from the police station...When we got there the body had been taken to a morgue in Tehran, but his ring and watch were there,'' said Pouyandeh's daughter Nazanin. Family members said the writer had been strangled and dumped by a railway bridge in a Tehran suburb. The killings have outraged secularists and prompted western literary societies, human rights groups and the U.S. State Deparment to call for government action. They have also exposed the relative weakness of the president under Iran's Islamic system, which gives him little control over law enforcement, and raised doubts over his ability to protect his supporters from hardline forces. On Sunday, 140 Iranian MPs demanded the arrest of the murderers and the conservative-led judiciary met to discuss the case. ``The kidnapping and murders in recent weeks are obviously aimed at opposing the realisation of a civil society...and defeating the political development project of Khatami,'' said the pro-reform daily Khordad. Despite his overwhelming election victory in May, 1997, on promises to construct a ``civil soiety,'' Khatami has little real executive power to back up his reform push against an entrenched opposition. The intelligence service, police and armed forces report to Iran's supreme leader, who is generally seen as closer to the president's conservative critics. Iranian officials have so far proved powerless to halt the killings. Many have blamed outside forces and foreign enemies for what they say is a terror campaign designed to destabilise Iran in general and Khatami's reforms in particular. ``Behind this saga we can see there are plots and anti-revolutionary subversive acts and their purpose is nothing but to discourage people and weaken the regime and strike a blow at the new atmosphere in the Islamic Republic,'' said the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, run by a Khatami ally. In an interview with the reformist Zan newspaper, Deputy Interior Minister Mostafa Tajzadeh said whatever the source of the killings the danger for Khatami's liberalisation of Iranian society was very real: ``In every society, first priority goes to security. Between security and any other values, people will definitely choose security. ``That is why they say that after anarchy there must come dictatorship, because anarchy will make society thirsty for security and people will pay any price to get that security, even if they lose their legimate rights and freedoms.'' In an open letter to the president, a group of Iranian intellectuals appealed to the president for protection: ``We writers wish to call on the chief executive, who is in charge of ensuring the safety of all citizens, to end this horrible situation by any means.'' They also sought permission to resurrect an independent writers' association, a step viewed as counter-revolutionary by the clerical establishment. Mokhtari and Pouyandeh had been among six writers summoned in October to a revolutionary court to answer for such activities. The writers' appeal mirrored similar pleas last week from pro-reform students, who used a question-and-answer session with the president to seek his protection from the bare-knuckle tatics of hardline pressure groups, who often disrupt university rallies and meetings. * Iran News
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