Who is behind the slaying of Iranian dissidents?
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- After Dariush Foruhar and his wife were found stabbed
to death under mysterious circumstances, dissidents began to more openly
question a string of slayings of critics of the Iranian government.
A friend found the couple's bloody bodies in their home last month.
Foruhar had been stabbed 15 times in the heart. His wife, Parvaneh, was
also stabbed to death.
There was no sign of burglary and it seemed like a professional killing.
Both husband and wife had been sprayed with some unknown substance, knocking
them out so they couldn't scream for help.
The slayings were chilling in their familiarity: At least nine political
activists whose actions angered Iran's clerical rulers have been killed
over the past decade, many stabbed to death like the Foruhars.
Dissidents and newspapers are beginning to question the spate of slayings,
emboldened by the promise of political freedoms offered by President Mohammad
Khatami, a moderate cleric elected last year.
Others killed include a Tehran University professor, a magazine editor,
a publisher, three Christian priests and two Sunni Muslim preachers who
spoke out against Iran's Shiite Muslim leaders.
The day the Foruhars were buried marked the 10th anniversary of another
killing. Kazem Sami, leader of a liberal Islamic movement, was stabbed
to death at his Tehran office on Nov. 26, 1988. In none of the earlier
slayings are the perpetrators known to have been found or brought to justice.
The latest dissident to disappear is poet and writer Mohammed Mokhtari,
who hasn't been seen since leaving his home last week, the Zan newspaper
of Tehran reported Monday.
Police said they have made several arrests in the slaying of the Foruhars,
after Khatami condemned the killings and ordered an investigation. But
no findings have been made public.
The National Front, an umbrella group that included Foruhar's Iran Nation
Party, noted that the couple's every movement was closely watched by the
intelligence and security agencies.
"Everyone is asking, 'How could one or more persons have gone through
this permanent intelligence watch and murdered the Foruhars in cold blood?"'
the group said in a statement.
New York-based Human Rights Watch expressed concern "that the killing
of the Foruhars is part of a longstanding pattern of harassment and persecution
of government critics in Iran."
Parvaneh Foruhar had told Human Rights Watch that she and her husband
feared for their lives.
The political killings have not been limited by Iran's borders. More
than 60 Iranian exiles have been slain while abroad since 1979.
Last year, a German court convicted an Iranian secret agent and three
other men of murdering a dissident in 1992, and said the men carried out
the slayings on orders from Iran's top leaders. The ruling soured relations
between Germany and Iran.
When Khatami was elected, many hoped he would bring genuine change to
Iran, ending the heavy-handed rule of the last 20 years.
But his efforts have been frustrated by powerful hard-liners like Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei. As supreme leader, Khamenei has the last word on all matters.
More and more, Khatami's hard-line rivals are using violence to deal
with opponents. Over the past year, vigilantes have attacked dissidents,
liberal newspapers and even a reformist Cabinet minister. They have also
broken up pro-democracy rallies.
None have been arrested, leading to suspicions that they are backed
by powerful hard-line clerics like Khamenei and Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi,
the head of the judiciary who operated beyond Khatami's control. Despite
Khatami's promises, prominent dissidents continue to be subjected to arbitrary
detention and restrictions on their freedom of expression.
In November, four journalists from the Tous newspaper, which was ordered
closed for its outspoken views, were freed after a month in jail.
In July, during the corruption scandal surrounding Tehran Mayor Gholamhossein
Karbaschi -- a close ally of Khatami -- officials who were arrested along
with the mayor claimed they were tortured at secret prisons run by the
Intelligence Ministry. Moderates have said that the arrest of Karbaschi,
who is appealing his corruption conviction, was meant to undermine Khatami.
In September former Deputy Prime Minister Abbas Amir-Entezam was detained
following his public criticism of the treatment of political prisoners.
Amir-Entezam had been freed in 1996 after 17 years in prison on charges
of spying for the United States.
A year ago, attackers targeted the home of Grand Ayatollah Hossein
Ali Montazeri, a senior cleric, after he publicly questioned the rule of
the clerics.
Yazdi, the judicial chief, insists there are no political prisoners
in the Islamic republic.
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