Issue 41

A Swiss judge has issued an international arrest warrant for the former head of Iran’s notorious secret police for his role in the assassination of a prominent Iranian dissident.

The warrant was issued to law enforcement agencies for the arrest of Hojjatoleslam Ali Fallahian, who for years headed Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). Fallahian was charged with masterminding the assassination of Prof. Kazem Rajavi, a renowned human rights advocate, and elder brother of Iranian opposition leader Massoud Rajavi.

Kazem Rajavi, then the representative of the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in Switzerland, was gunned down in broad daylight by several MOIS agents on April 24, 1990 as he was driving to his home in Coppet, a village near Geneva.

March 6, 2006 (Stop Fundamentalism) – Reuters reported from the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Thursday this week that the United Nations Security Council would only give Iran two chances to freeze its nuclear activity before sanctions are imposed,.

"This is a calibrated, gradual, reversible approach," said Ambassador John Bolton.

If Iran defies a statement from the Security Council, which has urged it to suspend its nuclear enrichment activities by the end of this month, then the council would likely issue a stiffer warning demanding such compliance, Bolton said.

Stop Fundamentalism – Reports from news agencies and Iranian sources indicate that a man identified only by his first name ‘Mohammed’ has been the latest victim of public execution in Iran.

The execution took place on April 5 in the city of Bam, the scene of the devastating earthquake of December 2003.

The man was convicted of murdering another man in 2005, authorities say.

The execution brings the total number of people executed in Iran in 2006 to 30 according to France Press News Agency.

Public executions in Iran are used as means of controlling the ever growing public dissent especially amongst the youth in Iran. Therefore, the main victims of these public executions are teens and young adults whose ages range between 18 through 25.

Currently, there are at least two young women in Iran on death row. Delara Darabi 19, and Nazanin 18, both committed their crimes when they were under 18.

Iranian regime also executed a political prisoner, Mr. Hojjat Zamani, a prominent resistance figure on February 7 and another political prisoner, Mr. Valiollah Feiz-Mahdavi is currently awaiting his execution set to be carried out on May 16. He reportedly has been forced to sign his own death warrant.

Public executions are usually carried out by hanging the victim from a crane in crowded areas of major cities and public squares to receive maximum number of viewers.

The Telegraph

Three years on, we are still unable to look at foreign policy except through the lens of the Iraq war. This is especially true when it comes to Iran, whose alphabetical and geographical proximity to Iraq makes for facile comparisons.

In particular, it is argued that deploying force against Teheran would bring about the same unhappy consequences as the toppling of Saddam: it would lead to more instability; it would inflame Muslim opinion throughout the world, including in Western cities; it would violate international law; and it would worsen the lives of ordinary Iranians.

Once again, the motives of those calling for direct action are called into question. Just as we were forever being told that the West had sold weapons to Ba’athist Iraq, so we are now being reminded that it was British and American agents who overthrew Iranian democracy in the first place, back in 1953. This last argument is very silly: the fact that we made mistakes in the past is not a reason to make more mistakes in the future. But the other objections are serious ones, and deserve to be considered separately.

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