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December 28

* Group appeals on web for funds to carry out Rushdie death sentence

TEHRAN, Dec 28 (AFP) - A private Iranian group is to launch an appeal on the internet for money to implement a religious death sentence on British writer Salman Rushdie, the Kayhan newspaper reported Tuesday. The founder of Iran's Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a religious decree, or fatwa, in 1989 condemning Rushdie to death for his novel "The Satanic Verses," which he judged blasphemous against Islam >>> FULL TEXT

December 27

* Moderate Iranian party claims it was bugged by reformist newspaper

TEHRAN, Dec 27 (AFP) - A moderate Iranian political party is claiming to have been bugged by a reformist newspaper which quoted controversial remarks by one of its leading members, press reports said Monday. The Kargozaran-e-Sazandeghi (Executives of Construction) party close to former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani pointed the finger at Said Hajarian, head of the Sobh-e Emruz daily, the reports said >>> FULL TEXT

December 25

* Iran paper says two more students condemned to die over July riots

TEHRAN, Dec 25 (AFP) - Two more Iranian students have been sentenced to death over July's bloody unrest, one of them because he showed international media the blood-soaked shirt of a beaten colleague, a newspaper said Saturday. The moderate Fath paper cited a student group saying Akbar Mohammadi had been condemned to death for throwing petrol bombs during the riots >>> FULL TEXT

December 24

* Yazdi wants to curb press

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - The government should curb the press before its ``unlimited'' freedom had serious consequences, a leading hard-line cleric in Iran said Friday. ``Stop this trend of insults. We have to do something to stop it, not just talk about stopping it,'' Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi told worshippers at the traditional Friday prayers sermon at Tehran University >>> FULL TEXT

December 23

* Nouri seeks quashing of dissent conviction

TEHRAN, Dec 23 (Reuters) - Leading Iranian reformer Abdollah Nouri has demanded the quashing of a five-year jail sentence passed on him by a clerical court on dissent charges, newspapers reported on Thursday. Nouri, a popular Shi'ite Moslem cleric close to President Mohammad Khatami, made the request in a letter to Prosecutor General Ayatollah Morteza Moqtadaei >>> FULL TEXT

December 22

* Khatami's brother to start paper

TEHRAN, Dec 22 (Asr-e Azadegan) - A new pro-Khatami newspaper will hit the newsstands on Saturday. "Mosharekat" (Cooperation) will be headed by the president's brother, Mohammad Reza Khatami >>> FULL TEXT

December 20

* Defiant Iran cleric challenges leader from jail

TEHRAN, Dec 20 (Reuters)- Jailed Iranian reformist cleric Abdollah Nouri issued a new challenge to Iran's supreme clerical leader in an open letter written in his prison cell and published by newspapers on Monday. ``What I have published...said in court and what I have written here are only a small part of the righteous demands of the people,'' Nouri, jailed on dissent charges by a hardline court, said in the letter addressed to the prosecutor >>> FULL TEXT

December 16

* Moderate newspaper, Arya, banned for two weeks

TEHRAN, Dec 16 (AFP) - Iran's conservative press court has banned the moderate daily Arya for two weeks for "damaging public opinion" following complaints by the security forces, press reports said Thursday. Arya, which is close to Iran's reformist President Mohammad Khatami, was also fined six million rials (2,000 dollars at the official exchange rate). The management of Arya has 20 days to appeal against the verdict >>> FULL TEXT

* Students see film of police raid on Tehran University hostel

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - More than 1,000 students attended the premiere Tuesday of a documentary on the storming of a university hostel that left one person dead and 20 injured. Made by the students' Islamic Association, the one-hour film showed the destruction wrought when security forces and conservative vigilantes raided the Tehran University hostel after a student protest on July 9 >>> FULL TEXT

December 15

* Khatami calls for rapid solution to murders of dissidents

TEHRAN, Dec 15 (AFP) - Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said Wednesday he wanted a "speedy solution" to multiple killings of Iranian intellectuals and dissidents that shocked the country at the end of last year and the beginning of this. "I have not had direct responsibility for this weighty and complex case, but I hope we shall arrive at a speedy solution," he told journalists as he left parliament after presenting his budget >>> FULL TEXT

* Lawyer rejects doubts over Abdollah Nuri's registration for polls

TEHRAN, Dec 15 (AFP) - Jailed former vice president Abdollah Nuri's registration as a candidate for key parliamentary elections in February is "cut and dried," his lawyer said Wednesday dismissing doubts raised over the key reformer's eligibility. "His registration is cut and dried and we won't except any more excuses" for not accepting it, lawyer Mohsen Rahami told AFP >>> FULL TEXT

December 14

* Jailed Abdollah Nouri registered for general elections

TEHRAN, Dec 14 (AFP) - Jailed Iranian former vice president Abdollah Nuri was registered as a candidate for key parliamentary elections in February Tuesday by his lawyer, giving fresh hope to his reformist supporters of success in the polls. Lawyer Mohsen Rahami said officials raised no objection to his client's registration despite the five-year jail sentence imposed on Nuri by a hardline court last month for anti-Islamic propaganda in his now banned daily Khordad ... FULL TEXT

December 13

* Students demand reformist cleric's release

TEHRAN, Dec 13 (Reuters) - About 4,000 Iranian students held a campus rally in Tehran on Monday to protest against the imprisonment of leading reformist cleric Abdollah Nouri. ``Nouri must be released!'' chanted the students, who carried portraits of Nouri and President Mohammad Khatami ... FULL TEXT

* Students rally in support of Abdollah Nouri

TEHRAN, Dec 13 (AFP) - Thousands of Iranian students of both sexes rallied outside Tehran University mosque Monday in support of jailed reformist Abdollah Nuri. The rally was called by the Office for Consolidation and Unity (OCU), the main reformist student group, to protest against the jailing of Nuri last month by the hardline Special Court for Clergy (SCC) ... FULL TEXT

December 11

* Staff of banned Khordad newspaper bring out new title

TEHRAN, Dec 11 (AFP) - The staff of Iran's reformist daily Khordad brought out a new title, Fath (Conquest) Saturday, only two weeks after their previous paper was banned and its chief, Abdollah Nuri, was jailed for five years. The first issue of Fath, which like Khordad supports reformist President Mohammad Khatami, carried a picture of a smiling Nuri, who was jailed by the Special Court for Clergy for spreading "anti-Islamic propaganda" in the pages of Khordad ... FULL TEXT

December 8

* Pro-reform newspaper (Salam) which triggered riots back under new title

TEHRAN, Dec 8 (AFP) - Staff members of the leading pro-reform Salam daily, whose closure in July sparked six days of unprecedented student riots in Tehran, brought a new reformist newspaper to the newsstands Wednesday ... FULL TEXT

December 7

* Staff of banned Khordad vow to publish new paper

TEHRAN, Dec 7 (AFP) - Staff of the leading Iranian daily Khordad Tuesday thumbed their nose at a ban issued by a hardline clerical court late last month by vowing to bring a new reformist title to the newsstands. Some 100 staff gathered at the paper's offices in Tehran to defy the Special Court for Clergy's (SCC) order for the closure of the paper ... FULL TEXT

* Abdollah Nouri still has 10 days to appeal jail sentence

TEHRAN, Dec 7 (AFP) - Leading Iranian reformer Abdollah Nuri still has 10 days to appeal a five-year jail sentence handed down by a clerical court last month, the Tehran press reported Tuesday. Any appeal will first have to be examined for its "validity," newspapers quoted the head of the Special Court for Clergy (SCC), Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, as telling a meeting of law students ... FULL TEXT

December 6

* 1200 people commemorate the anniversary of authors' murders

TEHRAN, Dec 6 (AFP) - Some 1200 Iranians gathered in a mosque here Monday in memory of two authors slain last year during a string of murders of leading intellectual dissidents that authorities blamed on rogue members of the secret police. They assembled in the Fakhr-Abad mosque to mark the anniversary of the deaths of Mohammad Mokhtari and Jafar Puyandeh, whose murders followed those of secular opposition leader Daryush Foruhar and his wife Parveneh ... FULL TEXT

* Dissident's Imprisonment Widens Political Gap in Iran

December 6, 1999, (The New York Times) -- Student protests against the sentence continued Sunday, and Abdullah Nouri, the high-ranking cleric who was jailed on heresy charges, sent a message from prison that he was holding firm to his refusal to appeal, as a matter of principle. At the same time, word came from the clerical court that condemned him that it was considering new prosecutions of Nouri's associates on a reformist Tehran newspaper ... FULL TEXT

December 5

* Former Tehran police chief and 19 others face trial over July unrest: radio

TEHRAN, Dec 5 (AFP) - Tehran' former police chief Farhad Nazari and 19 other officers and men will be court-martialled soon for their role in the repression of last July's student demonstrations, state radio said Monday. Heavy-handed police intervention against the demonstrations at Tehran university which followed the banning of a pro-reform newspaper sparked off the worst rioting in Iran for 20 year ... FULL TEXT

December 3

* Janati accuses Washington of serial killings in Iran

TEHRAN, Dec 3 (AFP) - Conservative Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Janati accused the United States Friday of being behind a series of murders of intellectuals and opposition politicians in Iran a year ago ... FULL TEXT

December 2

* Iran clergy challenge supreme leader on Nouri

TEHRAN, Dec 2 (Reuters) - A group of reform-minded Iranian clergy challenged the country's supreme ruler regarding the recent jailing of a leading reformist politician, in a statement published on Thursday. ``The sentence of (reformist cleric Abdollah) Nouri was issued by a court which...everybody knows to be in open legal conflict with the constitution,'' said a statement issued by the League of Teachers at the religious Qom Seminaries and which was published in newspapers ... FULL TEXT

* Rights group urges release of Iranian reformer

DUBAI, Dec 2 (Reuters) - A U.S.-based human rights group urged Iran's spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to quash the conviction of a leading reformist politician, jailed for five years on charges of dissidence ... FULL TEXT

December 1

* Special courts for the clergy: legitimate?

December 1, 999: Commentary by Sadeq Saba of the BBC Persian Service on the trial of Abdollah Nouri and the special clerical court which sentenced to fice years in prison (RealAudio) ... LISTEN HERE

* Iranian cleric Nouri defies appeal calls

TEHRAN, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Reformist cleric Abdollah Nouri, locked up in Iran's most notorious prison for religious and political dissent, has rejected all calls to appeal against his landmark conviction. Nouri's lawyer Mohsen Rohami said his client, a 50-year-old Shi'ite Moslem cleric, remained defiant behind bars, rejecting proposals from political and religious allies that he fight the verdict of the hardline Special Court for Clergy.... FULL TEXT

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