Hard-line group threatens to kill dissident
Jan 15, 1999, TEHRAN, Iran (AP) An Iranian militant group has threatened
to kill the editor-in-chief of a liberal magazine, the publication's owner
said in a statement.
Reza Alijani, editor-in-chief of the monthly Iran Farda, received two
death threats in the past few days, magazine owner Ezatollah Sahabi said
in a statement faxed to The Associated Press late Thursday.
``After the last victim was killed ... you are next, Alijani, and if
you continue to give interviews to foreign radio stations, your next interview
will be the last in your life,'' Sahabi's statement quoted the written
threat as saying.
The threat follows the killing of five writers in the past two months,
all of whom had spoken out against Iran's clerical leadership.
Two other leading dissidents are missing. Sahabi, whose magazine also
is critical of clerical rule, said the threats to Alijana came from the
radical group Islam Fedayeen, or Islamic commandos.
His statement said the threats' reference to the last victim was to
Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh, one of the five slain dissidents.
Sahabi, a prominent opposition figure and a former budget and planning
minister, sent a similar statement to Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi-Lari,
a moderate.
After the mysterious killings since November, the Intelligence Ministry
recently said it arrested 10 of its agents in connection with the deaths.
The ministry's statement followed President Mohammad Khatami's urging
a thorough investigation into the killings.
The slain dissidents were sympathetic to political reforms that Khatami
is trying to carry out amid hard-line opposition.
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