Iran Court Bans Newspaper which Quoted Shah's Widow

TEHRAN,(Reuters) - A court in Iran on Tuesday ordered the closure of a moderate newspaper which recently quoted the widow of the late shah, a staff member at the daily said. The moderate newspaper Zan (Woman), run by Faezeh Hashemi, daughter of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, aroused intense conservative anger at the weekend when it printed parts of a message by Farah Diba, widow of the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who was toppled by the 1979 Islamic revolution. "The Islamic revolutionary court summoned Mrs Hashemi and demanded that the newspaper stop publication immediately," the staff member told Reuters. "The newspaper plans to defy the order...because we do not believe the revolutionary court is qualified to rule in this matter which should be dealt with by the press court," said the staff member, who declined to be named. The publication of part of an Iranian New Year message by Diba, a first since the revolution, had prompted a written warning from the moderate-led Culture Ministry, which is itself under conservative fire for its relatively liberal policies. Journalists said the court also objected to a caricature in Zan's Tuesday edition which appeared to criticise Iran's Islamic laws under which the "blood money" for a murdered woman is half that for a man. Blood money is the sum paid by a murderer to the victim's family to obtain a pardon from a death sentence. Zan, which has been outspoken on moderate causes and women's rights issues, was suspended for two weeks earlier this year on charges of insulting police. The shah and his family have been reviled in Iran's media since they left the country as the 1979 revolution unfolded. The shah died in Egypt the following year and his widow settled in the United States. The former empress had said in her message: "In the coming third millennium, our ancient Iran will begin a new glorious period by efforts of its worthy children." Iran's press has enjoyed more freedom since moderate President Mohammad Khatami took office in 1997.

A LOOK AT . . . THE IRANIAN STALEMATE: The Old Tie That Caught Tehran's Eye

By Sean Boyne When I arrived in Iran late last month, people were still marveling over one detail of the recent elections--Sadegh Samii's posters. People had stared in disbelief at the posters on walls in downtown Tehran. They bore a picture of Samii, a candidate for the local council, wearing an item of clothing they had not seen in regular use since the Islamic revolution 20 years before. Samii was wearing a necktie. Neckties have been taboo in Iran since the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ousted the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, in 1979. They were seen as symbols of Western decadence. If you wanted to emphasize you were a fervent Muslim in tune with the revolution, you not only grew a beard, you also made sure your wardrobe didn't include any ties. The elections were the first local elections since the revolution, and supporters of reform-minded President Mohammed Khatemi swept the boards. Samii's gesture may have been a small one but it was also in a sense revolutionary. At a diplomatic dinner party in Tehran, all the talk was of Samii. "Have you heard about the guy with the tie?" one foreign diplomat asked me eagerly, with a mixture of awe and amusement. I wondered if anything had happened to Samii. Had the religious police come knocking on his door? So I called and asked him. Samii turns out to be from an old Tehran family. He speaks English with an upper-class British accent, and seemed friendly and outgoing. The 53-year-old banker and publisher was wondering what all the fuss was about. He patiently explained to me that wearing a tie was no brave gesture of defiance on his part. He had been wearing one for 40 years, since he was a schoolboy, he said, and had gotten used to it. Okay, I reckoned, he may have gotten away with wearing a tie in private. But displaying posters of himself in one was a different matter. Wasn't he inviting some kind of retaliation? "People say wearing a tie is outlawed by the criminal code but I've never seen any such law in print. Nobody reacted negatively to my posters--neither the public nor people in authority," he assured me. "I didn't get elected. . . . But I did come in 31st out of 4,763 candidates, which is not bad at all." Samii is, in a way, a symbol of the more open society that is taking shape under the reforming guidance of Khatemi. During my 10 days in Iran, I came across many other such examples. An affluent young trader in Tehran's teeming downtown bazaar noted a change in the way many women are wearing the obligatory veil. "A few years ago, they all had the veil pulled down over their foreheads. But since Khatemi came in, many women, especially the younger ones, have pushed the veil back a couple of inches, showing part of their hair. Maybe, next year, they will not be forced to wear the veil at all," he said. Another sign of the new openness is the increasing number of young people using the Internet. There are now at least five Internet cafes in Tehran. I visited one of the first to open--the Coffee Net in the affluent northern suburbs. Here, young men and black-veiled young women sit intently in front of computer screens, surfing the Internet and sending e-mail. Occasionally, in parks and on the street, I also saw young couples holding hands--something that Iranians assured me I would not have seen before Khatemi was elected in 1997. But traveling through Tehran one night, I came across a stark reminder of the past. The headlights of my taxi lit up a rather ghostly scene--a walled compound patrolled by armed men. It was the former U.S. embassy, where 52 Americans were taken hostage in 1979. Attitudes in Iran may have softened since then, but there are still no official relations with the United States. When I met with Deputy Foreign Minister Seyyed Sadegh Kharrazi in a simple but elegant office in northern Tehran, I asked him what the United States would have to do to bring about normal relations with Iran. "Just a change of tone will not solve anything," he said. "Who are the Americans to put an empty spoon in our mouths? The Americans should offer their apology to the Iranian nation. They should release the frozen assets of Iran, and remove their sanctions. If they did so, then it [normalization of relations] could be considered." On a personal level, I found many positive things about Iran. Like many other people--men and women--I felt safe walking its streets late at night. I visited Esfahan, one of its stunningly beautiful cities. Shiraz is another. Most of the people I met were kind and hospitable. While the restrictions on women are obvious the moment you set foot in the country, they are clearly not as severe as in some other societies in the region. Women work outside the home, drive cars and hold office at the highest levels of government. Of the more than 300,000 candidates in last month's elections, 5,000 were women. Several veiled Iranian women were on my flight as I left Tehran. By the time we had reached Dubai, just across the Persian Gulf, they had all thrown off their head scarves and bulky overcoats to reveal bare arms, figure-hugging designer jeans, a certain amount of cleavage and fashionable hairdos. Their dramatic transformation reminded me that just below the surface of a conservative, traditional society, young people especially are eager for change. Sean Boyne, a Dublin-based journalist, is a correspondent for Jane's Intelligence Review.

US Tops Iran in Wrestling World Cup

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) -- Kerry McCoy pinned Iran's Ebrahim Mehraban in the final heavyweight match of the 27th World Cup of Wrestling to lead the United States to the team title on Saturday night. McCoy, of State College, Pa., pinned Mehraban after 1:03 to cap the United States' 4-0 finish in the two-day, round-robin event. Iran, which finished 3-1, took second. Cuba (2-2) was third, with Germany (1-3) and Canada (0-4) taking the final two spots. In the championship match, Iran took an early lead by winning the two lowest weight categories. Gholam Reza Mohammadi won by technical fall over Sammie Henson of Norman, Okla., in the 119-pound class, and Ali Rezar Dabier won by decision over Tony Purler of Clarion, Pa., in the 127 3/4-pound event. The United States captured the next four events with victories by Cary Kolat of Bellefonte, Pa. (138 3/4 pounds); Lincoln McIlravy of Iowa City, Iowa (152 pounds); Steve Marianetti of Urbana, Ill. (167 1/2 pounds); and Les Gutches of Corvallis, Ore. (187 1/4 pounds). In the 213 3/4-pound event, Iran's Ali Reza Heidari won by decision over J.J. McGrew of Stillwater, Okla. In the match for third place, Cuba beat Germany 19-11. Cuba opened with four wins in the four lowest weight categories. German wrestlers took two of the four highest weight classes, with Cuba's Alexis Rodriguez winning a decision over Sven Theile in the 286-pounds-and-over heavyweight class. Canada failed to advance to the final session after losing to the United States and Germany earlier in the day. Under the tournament format, the five teams competed in a series of dual meets over two days. The teams were chosen based on the performance of their wrestlers at the World Championships last September in Iran. Six teams were supposed to compete, but the defending champion Russian team did not arrive. The conflict in Kosovo led to the closure of the U.S. embassy in Moscow, and the wrestlers' visas were inside the embassy and could not be retrieved. The United States has dominated the World Cup in the 1990s, winning seven of nine team titles, including Saturday's victory. An international event, the World Cup is a step below world championship or Olympic competitions, but some team members are likely to compete for Olympic berths.

Iran Making Human Rights Progress

GENEVA (AP) -- The Iranian government is making progress toward building a more ``tolerant society'' that recognizes human rights, a U.N. expert said today. However, the Islamic nation should remain under special scrutiny at the U.N. Human Rights Commission for at least another year because improvements are not extensive enough, said Maurice Danby Copithorne, the U.N. special investigator on Iran. Copithorne, a Canadian lawyer, cited the killings of prominent dissident writers at the end of last year as an example of the ``unanswered questions'' about the regime. He urged the Iranian government to speed up prosecutions of those suspected of the slayings, including intelligence ministry officials. The killings were part of a wave of violence, triggered by the intensified power struggle between supporters of hard-liners and moderates backing President Mohammad Khatami. Copithorne spoke to journalists before presenting his report on Iran to the 53-nation human rights commission. His 26-page report said that women and members of the Baha'i faith continued to suffer violations. Despite the problems, Copithorne praised Khatami for trying to ``create a more tolerant society in which the rule of law plays a part and which generally recognizes human rights to a considerable degree greater than in the past.'' However, he said that it was likely to be an uphill struggle and would take years before real results appeared. Angry that it remains under the commission's special scrutiny along with Iraq and Sudan, the Iranian government didn't invite Copithorne to visit the country. The report was compiled from discussions with the authorities and other groups in the United States and Geneva.

Hardline Iran Daily Slams Ex-Empress Greetings

TEHRAN,(Reuters) - An Iranian newspaper published on Saturday part of a New Year message by the country's former empress. But the landmark move provoked the immediate ire of a conservative daily. The new year greeting by former empress Farah Diba was the first time she has been quoted in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled her late husband the Shah. "(Ex-Empress) Farah Diba has sent a new-year message to the people of Iran. The text was sent to the newspaper by fax," wrote the moderate paper Zan, run by Faezeh Hashemi, daughter of former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. "In the coming third millennium, our ancient Iran will begin a new glorious period by efforts of its worthy children," it quoted the ex-empress as saying. But the hardline Kayhan newspaper denounced Zan for doing so. "The paper quoted the message of the corrupt and thieving wife of the criminal Shah as if she were a world-famous humanitarian figure," it said. Iran's press has enjoyed more freedom since the 1997 election of President Mohammad Khatami. Now however, reformist newspapers are coming under growing attack from religious conservatives who accuse them of abusing the new atmosphere of tolerance. Farah Diba and the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi left the country with their family as the 1979 revolution unfolded. The Shah died in Egypt the following year and his widow settled in the United States where she has lived ever since. The Iranian new year, Nowrouz, began on March 21 and newspapers were closed for two weeks. Zan's Saturday edition was the first since the holidays began.

Iran Daily Prints Part of Message from Ex-Empress

TEHRAN,(Reuters) - An Iranian newspaper published on Saturday part of a New Year message from the country's former empress, the first time she has been quoted here since the 1979 Islamic Revolution which toppled her husband, the Shah. "(Ex-Empress) Farah Diba has sent a New Year message to the people of Iran. The text was sent to the newspaper by fax," wrote the moderate paper Zan, run by Faezeh Hashemi who is the daughter of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. "In the coming third millennium, our ancient Iran will begin a new glorious period by the efforts of its worthy children," the paper quoted her as saying. Iran's press has enjoyed more freedom since the 1997 election of President Mohammad Khatami. Now, however, reformist newspapers are coming under growing attack from religious conservatives, who accuse them of abusing the new atmosphere of greater tolerance. Farah Diba and the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi left the country with their family as the 1979 revolution unfolded. The Shah died in Egypt the following year, and his widow settled in the United States where she has lived ever since. The Iranian new year, Nowrouz, began on March 21 and newspapers were closed for two weeks. Zan's Saturday edition was the first since the holidays began.

Iran Court Lays Charges Against Liberal Cleric

TEHRAN, (Reuters) - A special Iranian court has formally charged a liberal cleric detained in February with spreading false information and lies about the country's Islamic system, newspapers reported on Saturday. They said Mohsen Kadivar, held after writing a series of articles critical of Iran's ruling clergy, was charged by a special court for Shi'ite Moslem clerics. "...(Kadivar) has compared the holy Islamic system with the (former) imperial regime and has concluded that there has only been a nominal change from an imperial to an Islamic system," the daily Salam quoted the prosecutor as saying in a statement. The prosecutor accused Kadivar of abusing his clerical garb and helping the "sworn enemies" of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution. Kadivar, a supporter of reformist President Mohammad Khatami, was arrested on February 27 by the secretive Special Clergy Court -- a body denounced by many reformists as unconstitutional. He has asked for a public trial with a jury. A former senior prosecutor has agreed to defend him. He was quoted by the paper Aban as saying that his trial would begin after April 9. Moderate papers have denounced the arrest by the powerful court as politically motivated and an attempt to stifle freedom of speech. But Iran's conservative Chief Justice, Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, angrily denied last month that the judiciary was politicised. "The judiciary has never done any political work until now, nor does it do so now. It will do its work without paying any attention to anyone except God, religion and the revolution," he said in mass prayers in Tehran on March 26.