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News & Views Shadowy fundamentalist group claims murder of Iranian writers TEHRAN, Dec 21 (AFP) - A shadowy Islamic fundamentalist group has claimed responsibility for a series of murders of writers and dissidents in Iran in the past month, a newspaper reported Monday. "The revolutionary executions are a warning to all those whose pens are in the service of foreigners and want Iran's return to foreign domination," the Fedayeen (Devotees) of Pure Islam said in a statement published in Khordad daily. The group said it had killed two secular writers -- Mohammad Mokhtari and Mohammad Pouyandeh -- as well as nationalist leader Daryush Foruhar and his wife, Parvaneh Eskandari. Foruhar and his wife were stabbed to death in their Tehran home last month and the writers were kidnapped and murdered early this month. Another writer, Majid Sharif, was also found dead in mysterious circumstances, although the authorities said he had died of a heart attack. "The zealous sons of the people have acted on their own and executed these elements because the government is lax in dealing with them," the group said. It said it resented President Mohammad Khatami's policies to introduce political and social reform and establish law and order. "Our current politicians are lax and support hidden foreign elements with their slogans of opening up society. They consider friends of the revolution as hostile to the freedom of expression," said the group. The underground Fedayeen emerged recently with an agenda to reverse Khatami's reform program and protect what it calls fundamental principles of the 1979 Islamic revolution. The group claimed responsibility for an attack on a group of visiting Americans by Islamic fundamentalists last month after accusing them of being CIA spies. Their claim is contrary to the theory of a "foreign plot" behind the murders, put foward by the Iranian authorities. Khatami has blamed "organised crime rings" for the killings and vowed to expose and punish the culprits. * Iran News
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