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Iran to try some Al Qaeda suspects
IRIB NEWS
2003/08/11 Tehran, Aug 11 - Iran will try those Al Qaeda suspects whose nationality remain unclear as well as those who are rejected by their country of origin, a senior Foreign Ministry official said here Monday.

"If the nationality of some individuals are not known and no country accepts them, as the Information Minister has said, we will take action ourselves," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters at a weekly news briefing.

Iran's Information Minister Ali Younesi said on Saturday that Tehran will put some of the Al Qaeda operatives in Iranian custody on trial instead of allegedly swapping them with senior elements of terrorist opposition Mujahedin Khalq Organization.

Other Al Qaeda members to stand trial in the Islamic Republic are those who are found to have committed crimes in Iran, Asefi said.

"If it is established that some individuals among them have committed crimes in Iran, we will try them according to the country's laws and international commitments," he said.

Asefi refused to name any of those held by Tehran on the suspicion of being linked to Al Qaeda which Washington accuses of masterminding Sept 11, 2001 terror attacks on American landmarks.

"I am not in a position to announce who are among these individuals, but this is a security matter, the publication of which in the media is not expedient," he said.

Asked to confirm whether Kuwaiti-born Al Qaeda Spokesman Sulaiman Abu Gaith was in Iran, Asefi said, "This is an invented story which is appealing to certain media, especially in Arab countries.

"The discussions (in Arab and Western media about Al Qaeda) do not correspond with the condition of those held in Iran," he added.

Asefi also rejected press reports that Iran sought concessions from certain countries in exchange for extraditing Al Qaeda prisoners.

"This is a false news, invented outside (Iran) about Al Qaeda."We are serious in our fight against terrorism and we have turned back many of these individuals or returned them to their own countries," the Foreign Ministry Spokesman added.

Asefi turned the table on Western governments for being 'not committed to their responsibilities' and for 'supporting terrorist groups and the Zionist regime which is the symbol of state terrorism".

Atomic Experts Reach Iran for Nuclear Sites Inspections

August 12, 2003
AFP
Hindustan Times

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have arrived in Iran to conduct routine inspections of nuclear sites there, a spokesman for the UN agency said on Tuesday.

Four experts arrived in Iran on Tuesday to inspect the country's nuclear programme, in particular its enrichment programme which might enable it to develop nuclear weapons.

Water, air and soil samples will be taken back to Vienna to see if any traces of radioactive isotopes liable for use in an atomic bomb are present.

The results of the mission, which ends on Thursday, will be published in a report by IAEA secretary general Mohammed ElBaradei on September 8.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_337298,00050004.htm

Khatami Admits Democratic Reforms Have Failed

August 12, 2003
The Associated Press
Dow Jones Newswires

TEHRAN -- Iran's president Tuesday admitted his program of democratic reforms has largely failed but said he hasn't broken his promise to voters to promote democracy and freedoms, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

"Lately, speaking for me has become difficult because I feel many of the ideas and programs I sincerely offered and the people voted for have not materialized, " IRNA quoted Khatami as saying.

He added: "I remain committed to the promise I made to the nation, although doubts may have surfaced, because of the existing problems, that their servant ( Khatami) has broken his promise."

Last month, Khatami said he would resign if Iranians - dissatisfied over his failure to deliver promised reforms - want him to go.

Khatami made the remarks Tuesday amid continuing attempts by ruling hard-line clerics to undermine his reform agenda and deepening public discontent over the country's slow pace toward democratic change.

"Perhaps part of the population, especially the youth, who want quick realization of their demands, have become disappointed," he told the National Congress of Non-Government Youth Organizations in Tehran.

In June, thousands of Iranians held a week of nightly protests, railing not only against their usual targets - Iran's unelected hard-liners who control key institutions - but also against Khatami for his failure to introduce greater political, social and economic freedoms.

But Khatami said he still had some hopes for success.

"A ray of hope still exists. Considering the circumstances (in the country) I believe there is no way other than continuing the path we have begun. With patience and wisdom, hopefully we will succeed," IRNA quoted him as saying.

Khatami's hopes for a compromise with hard-liners have been thwarted in recent weeks after the hard-line Guardian Council, which vets all parliamentary legislation, rejected two key reform bills presented by the president.

Those bills would have given greater powers to Khatami to stop constitutional violations by his hard-line opponents and barred the Guardian Council from arbitrary disqualification of candidates in legislative and presidential elections.

Khatami has repeatedly complained that he has been powerless to stop hard- liners violating the constitution and acting against voted reforms and hoped the bills would give him the necessary instruments to push for reforms.

The president has said the closure of more than 90 pro-democracy publications over the past three years, the arrest of dozens of prominent intellectuals and writers and closed trials without jury were open violations of the constitution, but hard-liners have ignored his warnings.

Separately, a woman activist Tuesday held a sit-in in front of Iran's most notorious prison to protest the death of an Iranian-Canadian photojournalist while in police custody and "lack of security" for prisoners.

Azam Taleqani said her three-hour sit-in in front of Evin Prison in northern Tehran was a "symbolic" gesture of protest against trampling of freedoms and the rights of prisoners by the hard-line ruling Islamic establishment in Iran.

http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news_en.pl?l=en&y=2003&m=08&d=12&a=6

Woman Risks Iran's Wrath to Protest Canadian's Death

August 12, 2003
Toronto Star
Ali Akbar Dareini

TEHRAN - A woman activist held a three-hour sit-in outside Iran's most notorious prison today to protest the July death of a Canadian photojournalist while in police custody and "lack of security" for prisoners.

Azam Taleqani said her sit-in at Evin Prison in northern Tehran was a "symbolic" gesture of protest against the trampling of freedoms and the rights of prisoners by the hardline ruling Islamic establishment in Iran.

"I held a sit-in to protest the death in prison of Zahra Kazemi and the judiciary's failure to inform the public about who was behind the crime," Taleqani told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Taleqani said she was approached by prison officers, curious to know the reason for her sit-in. The officers asked her to leave, without forcing her.

Kazemi, 54, died July 10, nearly three weeks after she was detained for taking photographs outside a Tehran prison during student-led protests.

Iranian Vice-President Mohammad Ali Abtahi said Kazemi had been murdered. Earlier, a presidential committee that investigated Kazemi's death shied away from calling the death intentional, saying she died of a "fractured skull, brain hemorrhage and its consequences resulting from a hard object hitting the head or the head hitting a hard object."

A judicial inquiry into the death led to the detention of five Intelligence Ministry agents, two of whom were released earlier this month on bail.

Canada withdrew its ambassador after Kazemi was buried in her birthplace, the southern Iranian city of Shiraz, against the wishes of Canadian authorities and her son, who lives in Montreal.

"The mysterious death of Kazemi creates greater concerns about the safety of prisoners. How can we be sure that political prisoners don't meet the fate of Kazemi in jail?" asked Taleqani, who is close to the outlawed Freedom Movement of Iran. She said she is also concerned about prisoners held in solitary confinement for months without trial.

The Freedom Movement — which opposes the clerics ruling Iran — rejects violence and seeks peaceful but profound democratic changes.

Taleqani is the daughter of the late Ayatollah Mahmoud Taleqani, a highly respected liberal cleric in the early years after the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled pro-U.S. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Kazemi's death has become a new point of contention between Iran's elected reformers — who support President Mohammad Khatami's program of democracy and social freedoms — and unelected hardline conservatives, who stubbornly resist them.

Hardliners have closed down more than 90 pro-democracy publications and jailed several dozen writers and political activists in the last three years, almost all of them without trial or in closed trials without a jury.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?GXHC_gx_session_id_=1a284655ea620662&pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1060684975073&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968705899037