Human Rights
May 1-5, 2000 / Ordibehesht 12-16, 1379
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Latest
* Run-off elections go ahead
* Voting overshadowed by disputes
* Activists and Intellectuals Detained in Iran
* Israel cautiously opposes Iran trial
Recent
* Reformers stagger into vote battered
by conservatives
* Hard-liners face crucial test
* Two student journalists kidnapped: paper
* US underlines concerns over espionage trial of Iranian
Jews
* Israel indignant at the spy trial of Iranian Jews
* Iran shooting suspect says duped by accomplice
* Khamenei among worst enemies of the press: group
* Culture minister grilled in Majlis
* Journalists mark press freedom day
* Iranian Jews admit to spying for Israel
* Lawyers for Iranian Jews Say No Secrets Passed
* Iran assassination trial reopens
* Khatami explains assassination
bid
* US looks askance at Iranian Jew's espionage confession
* Eight intelligence officers arrested over murders inquiry:
paper
* Tehran council plans unemployment fund for journalists
* Journalist says press court unfit to try him
* US culture could swallow up native cultures: Khatami
* Some 20,000 workers stage protest march to mark May
Day
* Jewish spy suspect interview on TV
* Rafsanjani slams Iran's liberal media
* Iran says it spares four students from hanging after July
unrest
* Pro-Khatami student activist jailed
* Courts hear cases against reformists
* Khatami pushes reform agenda
* MPs warn culture minister but say no impeachment yet
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Friday
May 5 2000
* Run-off elections go ahead
Tehran, (BBC) -- Iranians have cast their votes in a crucial run-off
ballot for 66 seats which remained undecided after February's general election.
Reporters said the turn-out appeared low, but this was less important than
the fact that the second stage was being held at all >>>
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* Voting overshadowed by disputes
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Voter turnout was active across Iran Friday for runoff
parliamentary polls overshadowed by disputes about first round results
and press freedom. Reformists backing President Mohammad Khatami won more
than 100 seats in February but were caught up in a series of annulments
and a wrangle with conservatives over the count in Tehran >>>
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* Activists and Intellectuals Detained in Iran for Participating
in a Conference
(Washington, DC, May 3, 2000) -- Human Rights Watch today condemned
the April 30 arrest of six prominent Iranian activists for participating
in a conference on the future of Iran. The conference was held in Berlin
on April, 7-8, 2000. The detainees, all prominent Iranian intellectuals,
included Mehrangiz Kar, a women's rights advocate; Shahla Lahiji, publisher
of women's books; Akhbar Ganji, a journalist; and Ali Afshari, a student
leader. Ezzatollah Sahabi, a former minister, and Hamid-Reza Jalai-Pur,
an editor, were arrested and later released on bail. The six are charged
with "acting against the internal security of the state and disparaging
the holy order of the Islamic Republic." >>>
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* Israel cautiously opposes Iran trial
JERUSALEM (AP) - The mother of a Jew accused of spying and on trial
in Iran pressed her hand on one of the massive stone blocks of the Western
Wall, Judaism's holiest site, and prayed. The woman came Thursday to a
prayer vigil here for her son, Dani Tefilin. She sobbed loudly as his name
was read aloud >>>
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Thursday
May 4, 2000
* Reformers stagger into vote battered by conservatives
TEHRAN, May 4 (AFP) - Iran's reformers crushed conservatives at the
polls in February but instead of heading into the second round of parliamentary
voting Friday in command, they are staggering from a right-wing backlash.
For supporters of President Mohammad Khatami, almost everything has gone
wrong since they ousted the longtime conservative majority in parliament
that had stymied much of the president's plan to instil social and political
reform >>>
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* Hard-liners face crucial test
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Run-off elections in Iran on Friday present another
arena for a showdown between Islamic hard-liners and the reformists who
swept the first round of parliamentary voting in February. Hard-liners
who hoped to silence the opposition may instead have boosted the reformists'
popularity by closing 16 pro-democracy newspapers in Tehran, jailing top
liberal activists and annulling some of the reformists' victories in the
February vote for the 290-seat parliament, or Majlis >>>
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* Two student journalists kidnapped: paper
TEHRAN, May 4 (AFP) - Two Iranian student journalists from a Tehran
technical college have been kidnapped and a third attacked in the street,
a moderate newspaper said here Thursday >>>
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* US underlines concerns over espionage trial of Iranian Jews
WASHINGTON, May 4 (AFP) - The United States said Wednesday that its
concerns over the trial of 13 Iranian Jews charged with spying for Israel
were merely reinforced by the mounting number of questionable confessions.
"We and the rest of the world have no way to judge the legitimacy
of these confessions," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher
told reporter >>>
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* Israel indignant at the spy trial of Iranian Jews
JERUSALEM, May 4 (AFP) - Israel Wednesday expressed indignation at the
legal procedures used in the espionage trial of 13 Iranian Jews and the
confessions given by the accused. "We are revolted by the ways used
to obtain confessions" of three of the accused, said a statement issued
by the foreign minister >>>
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* Iran shooting suspect says duped by accomplice
TEHRAN, May 3 (Reuters) - A main suspect in the attempted assassination
of a leading Iranian reformer said in court on Wednesday he had been misled
by an accomplice to take part in the shooting, Iran 's official IRNA news
agency reported. "In the beginning we believed that (Mohammad Ali)
Moqaddami was concerned about the system and Islam, but we found out later
that we had been fooled by him," 29-year-old Mohsen Majidi said >>> FULL
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Wednesday
May 3, 2000
* Khamenei among "worst enemies of the press"
New York, May 3, 2000 --The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released
its annual list of the Ten Worst Enemies of the Press today, calling to
account those whose actions make them personally responsible for the abysmal
press conditions of their countries. Sierra Leone's Foday Sankoh, Iran's
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic head this year's
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* Culture minister grilled in Majlis
TEHRAN, May 3 (AFP) - Iran's embattled Culture Minister Ataollah Mohajerani
came under renewed attack Wednesday as a conservative MP charged he misused
government money to subsidise the pro-reform press. Ahmad Nejabat told
parliament that Mohajerani, blamed repeatedly for laxity over the pro-reform
press, much of which was shut down last week, had unfairly distributed
funds to reformist papers >>>
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* Journalists mark press freedom day
TEHRAN, May 3 (AFP) - Iranian journalists have marked international
press freedom day by setting up a fund to help colleagues thrown out of
work by recent press closure. The day falls less than two weeks after the
conservative- dominated courts closed much of the reformist press >>> FULL
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* Iranian Jews admit to spying for Israel
SHIRAZ, Iran (Reuters) - Three suspects in Iran's Jewish espionage case
Wednesday admitted to spying for Israel, with two of the accused telling
Western reporters they were motivated primarily by love of the promised
land. The alleged ringleader, Hamid ``Danny'' Tefileen, told Reuters in
a brief interview he had spied out of religious conviction as well as financial
need >>>
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* Lawyers for Iranian Jews Say No Secrets Passed
SHIRAZ, Iran (Reuters) - Lawyers for 13 Iranian Jews on trial for espionage
confirmed on Wednesday that their clients had admitted passing material
to Israel. But they challenged the state to prove that the information
was classified, making the accused spies under Iranian law >>>
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* Iran assassination trial reopens
TEHRAN, May 3 (Reuters) - Suspects in the assassination attempt against
pro-reform strategist and presidential aide Saeed Hajjarian returned to
court on Wednesday, one day after their alleged victim was released from
hospital. The official IRNA news agency said the case resumed in a Tehran
Revolutionary Court in the trial of eight young men, including the accused
triggerman in the gangland-style shooting on March 12 that left Hajjarian
with a bullet lodged near his spinal chord >>>
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Tuesday
May 2, 2000
* Khatami explains assassination bid
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iranian President Mohammad Khatami met Tuesday with
a close reformist ally who survived an assassination attempt, telling him
such shootings are the price of change. The president received Saeed Hajjarian
in Sadabad Palace. Hajjarian, who suffered a stroke after the March 12
attack and cannot walk, sat in a wheelchair and spoke very slowly with
frequent pauses. Khatami and Hajjarian smiled at each other and exchanged
jokes >>>
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* US looks askance at Iranian Jew's espionage confession
WASHINGTON, May 2 (AFP) - The United States reacted warily Tuesday to
reports of a confession by an Iranian Jew that he had spied for Israel,
saying previous admissions of guilt had not been supported by credible
evidence. The man, Hamid Tefilin, one of 13 Jews accused of espionage by
the Islamic republic, confessed in a statement televised Monday to having
betrayed his homeland by spying for Israel, a capital offense in Iran >>> FULL
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* Eight intelligence officers arrested over murders inquiry: paper
TEHRAN, May 2 (AFP) - Iran has arrested eight intelligence officers
for mistreating suspects in the 1998 killings of several dissidents and
intellectuals, a newspaper said here Tuesday. The conservative Tehran Times,
considered close to the judiciary, said the eight interrogators were arrested
last week following complaints from suspects who were subsequently cleared
of involvement in the murders >>>
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* Tehran council plans unemployment fund for journalists after press
bans
TEHRAN, May 2 (AFP) - The Tehran city council is putting forward plans
for an emergency fund to help the estimated 1,500 journalists left jobless
by the closure of Iranian newspapers, press reports said here Tuesday.
The council, in tandem with the culture ministry and the journalists' union,
is to vote on the plan, which would also offer loans to reporters left
in dire straits by the wholesale press closures last week >>>
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* Journalist says press court unfit to try him
TEHRAN, May 2 (AFP) - Journalist Emadeddin Baghi said Iran's conservative
press court, which hauled him in for a second day of hearings Tuesday,
was unfit to judge him. "This court is not competent and I have sent
a letter to the justice department," Baghi told reporters following
the closed-door session at the Tehran press court >>>
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* US culture could swallow up native cultures: Khatami
TEHRAN, May 2 (AFP) - Iranian President Mohammad Khatami warned Tuesday
that US culture could take over the world, swamping indigenous cultures.
"Native cultures feel threatened by the Americanisation of their cultures,
while wise men in America speak of cultural decline and impoverishment,"
Khatami said in a speech at the opening of Tehran's 13th book fair >>> FULL
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Monday
May 1, 2000
* Some 20,000 workers stage protest march to mark May Day
TEHRAN, April 30 (AFP) - Thousands of Iranian workers held a May Day
march Sunday in central Tehran, chanting slogans against a recently passed
law enabling employers with fewer than five staff to strip them of social
security. "Down with the unjust employer and those against the workers,"
and "the labour law in Iran is the product of martyrs' blood,"
chanted the protestors -- the majority being workers from factories in
Tehran's suburbs >>>
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* Jewish spy suspect interview on TV
SHIRAZ (Reuters) - The prime suspect in Iran's Jewish espionage trial
has confessed to being a trained Israeli agent who spied both for money
and for love of the Jewish state, the judiciary said Monday. In the first
glimpse at the state's case in the closed-door trial, Shiraz judiciary
chief Hossein Ali Amiri said Hamid ''Danny'' Tefileen had confessed to
passing classified information to Israeli intelligence, the Mossad, and
asked for a pardon >>>
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* Rafsanjani slams Iran's liberal media
April 28, (BBC) -- Iran's former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani,
has defended a crackdown on pro-reform newspapers, saying they undermined
Islam and served Iran's enemies. The comments come after an escalated conservative
campaign against the liberal press which has seen the closure of virtually
all its newspapers and magazines >>>
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* Iran says it spares four students from hanging after July unrest
TEHRAN, April 30 (AFP) - The Iranian judiciary said Sunday it had commuted
death sentences on four students condemned for their role in the unrest
of July last year into 15 years in jail for each, the official news agency
IRNA reported. The statement came after conflicting reports on the fate
of Mehrdad Sohrabi, Ahmad Batebi, Abbas Deldar and Akbar Mohammadi >>> FULL
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* Courts hear cases against reformists
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Three prominent Iranian reformers including two journalists
went on trial Monday before hard-line courts on charges of acting against
state security and violating religious values. Emadeddin Baqi was the latest
in a string of journalists to appear before the special press court. He
has angered the conservative establishment with allegations that officials
of the security services were behind serial murders of dissidents.>>>
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* Pro-Khatami student activist jailed
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - The head of Iran's largest reformist student group
was jailed Sunday in a widening crackdown by hard-liners, who reportedly
are also seeking to remove two top pro-reform Cabinet ministers. Ali Afshari,
head of the Office for Fostering Unity, was sent into detention after several
hours of questioning by the Revolutionary Court in Tehran, said officials
of the student group, speaking on condition of anonymity >>>
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* Khatami pushes reform agenda
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Defiant against a fierce hard-line crackdown on
Iran's pro-democracy movement, President Mohammad Khatami insisted Saturday
that the reforms he started three years ago could not be stopped. Khatami's
statement was his strongest yet against hard-liners who are trying to preserve
their power and, it is feared, will seek to prevent the gathering of Iran's
newly elected pro-reform parliament >>>
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* MPs warn culture minister but say no impeachment yet
TEHRAN, May 1 (AFP) - Iran's embattled culture minister, the target
of conservative wrath over the brazen pro-reform press, is unlikely to
be impeached despite reports to the contrary, MPs said in Monday's papers.
The conservative Tehran Times, considered close to the judiciary, quoted
four members of the outgoing conservative parliament saying a motion to
remove Ataollah Mohajerani was unlikely to be put forward >>>
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