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