Pro-Khatami party calls for dismissal of intelligence
minister
Jan 11, TEHRAN, Iran (AP) A political party that backs President Mohammad
Khatami has called for the dismissal of Iran's intelligence minister following
disclosures that ministry agents were involved in the deaths of political
dissidents.
The Farsi-language daily Emrooz on Monday quoted the party as saying
it ``believes that the first step to attract the confidence of the people
is the dismissal of the current management of the Intelligence Ministry.''
It added: ``The least public expectation is for the minister to claim
responsibility and resign.''
The recently formed party, known as the Participation Front of Islamic
Iran, has in its ranks many senior government officials allied to Khatami.
Intelligence Minister Ghorbanali Dorri Najafabadi, a hard-liner, has
come under fire following last week's announcement that a number of the
ministry's employees were arrested in connection with the recent killings
of five Iranian dissidents.
They were arrested after an investigation ordered by Khatami. The five
writers and opposition figures killed late last year were all critical
of the government's hard-line clergymen, who are trying to stymie Khatami's
moderate social and political reforms.
Meanwhile, a senior hard-line cleric accused Khatami supporters of being
behind the killings in order to get control of the Intelligence Ministry.
``For some time now, the opportunist leftists have been writing a scenario
to take over the Intelligence Ministry,'' Ruhollah Husseinian, chief of
the Center for Documents of the Islamic Republic, was quoted as saying
by the hard-line Kayhan daily.
The first of the five victims, Dariush Foruhar and his wife Parvaneh,
belonged to a minor opposition party. They were found stabbed to death
in their Tehran home on Nov. 22.
In the following weeks, writers Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh and Mohammad
Mokhtari disappeared and their bodies were found dumped on the outskirts
of the capital Tehran. They appeared to have been strangled. Both men had
tried to set up a writer's association.
A third writer, Majid Sharif, was found dead after disappearing from
his home.
Two other dissidents, Pirouz Davani and Rostami Hamedani, have been
missing since mid-December. av-ti/eap
Links
