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On Oct. 12, The U.S. Department of State and Iran’s principal opposition movement condemned a visit by Iran’s Interior Minister to a United Nations body in Geneva.“The regime’s decision to send Interior Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, a notorious human rights violator, as its representative to the Tripartite Commission of Iran, Afghanistan, and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva on October 9-10, 2006 underscores the Ahmadinejad Government’s open embrace of repressive policies and those responsible for carrying them out”, the State Department said in an official release on Wednesday.It charged that since he was appointed Interior Minister by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in August 2005, Pour-Mohammadi had helped “orchestrate a campaign to further restrict the limited rights of the Iranian people”. “Pour-Mohammadi’s history of human rights abuses in Iran includes his reported leading role in the 1988 mass execution of several thousand political prisoners at Tehran’s infamous Evin prison, and his involvement, as Deputy Intelligence Minister, in the 1998 murders of writers and dissidents throughout Iran. “Choosing Pour-Mohammadi to represent Iran in international deliberations on humanitarian issues demonstrates the regime’s continued disrespect for the international community and for the basic rights of its citizens”, it added.A day earlier, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the main coalition of groups opposed to Iran’s theocratic regime, issued a statement calling on Swiss authorities to arrest the radical Shiite cleric.The statement said: “The Iranian Resistance believes that inviting one of the most dreaded criminals of modern times to international organizations in Switzerland to be a betrayal of human rights and the sacred right of asylum and as such strongly condemns it”.“Mullah Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi was among the perpetrators of the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in 1988”, the opposition coalition said. “Pour-Mohammadi was among the principals in the ‘chain murders’ in the 1990s, in which at least 120 dissidents, writers and intellectuals were abducted and brutally murdered”, it said. It accused him of committing “crimes against humanity” and described his entry to the headquarters of the UNHCR as “shameful”.“The Iranian Resistance calls for Pour-Mohammadi’s expulsion from international organizations and arrest by the Swiss government so that he may be prosecuted in an international tribunal for crimes against humanity”, it said.
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Tehran’s chief of police is stepping down from his post, state media reported on Tuesday.Brigadier General Morteza Talai is leaving his command of the State Security Forces in Greater Tehran in order to stand for office in the December 15 municipal elections. He headed the SSF for seven years during which time he gained notoriety for his role in cracking down on numerous student-led anti-government protests and enforcing plans to root out dissent in society.
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Iran’s Ministry of Education on Oct. 10th issued a nationwide ban on schools teaching books that are not part of the national curriculum Only books that have been vetted by the ministry and given a seal of approval can been taught in schools.The decree effectively prevents private schools from being able to teach students using their own educational resources.It threatens headmasters with the sack if they fail to enforce the new regulations and warns that private schools may have their operating permits withdrawn if violations are discovered.The Ministry of Education vets all academic books to ensure that all literature deemed to be “un-Islamic” or “against national security” is filtered.
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A prominent Iraqi politician was gunned down along with 10 of his aides on Thursday in a television station in eastern Baghdad by gunmen wearing police uniforms.Gunmen raided the offices of Shaabiya satellite channel at 7 am local time and killed Abdul-Rahim Nasrallah, the leader of the National Justice and Progress Party (NJPP) and head of the channel’s board of directors, Hassan Kamil, Shaabiya’s executive director said.Recently-established Shaabiya, which is owned by the NJPP, had in recent weeks begun test broadcasts.Kamil said that the masked gunmen in police uniforms arrived at Shaabiya’s headquarters in Baghdad’s Zayouna District in seven vehicles and killed security guards and staff most of whom, were asleep in their beds.Two of the victims are believed to have survived the attack though one has been severely wounded. The NJPP is a secular party which has been very vocal against Iranian meddling in Iraq.
