Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!enterpoop.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: U.N. decries Iran on human rights as Tehran shuns U.S. Date: Wed, 25 Nov 92 16:20:05 EST Message-ID: Lines: 91 \SE A;WORLD \HD U.N. decries Iran on human rights as Tehran shuns U.S. \BY Andrew Borowiec \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES A U.N. report accused Iran yesterday of massive human rights violations, presaging renewed tension between the United States and Tehran as Iran openly seeks to become the dominant power in the Persian Gulf. While Iran's rulers promptly denounced the U.N. findings as based on "a Western point of view," exiled opponents called for an international arms and oil embargo against the revolutionary government. An appeal for international condemnation also was launched by a spokesman for the Bahai religion, which was singled out in the report as being particularly persecuted in Islamic Iran. Bahai originated in Iran in the 19th century. The U.N. report, prepared for the General Assembly by veteran diplomat Reynaldo Galindo Pohl of El Salvador, coincided with a growing barrage of anti-U.S. statements from Tehran, which seem to preclude any improvement in U.S.-Iranian relations under a Clinton administration. Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati said recently that Iran has "no intention to resume diplomatic relations with the United States" and that "Washington's policy toward Iran has not changed." This was echoed by Ayatollah Ahman Jannati, a senior Shi'ite cleric, who said that Iran "will mobilize zealous vigilantes against the West" and that confrontation with the United States is likely to continue because Iran does not expect changes in U.S. foreign policy. A broadcast by Tehran official radio charged that "Zionist capitalists in the United States have actually been stage managers of [Mr. Clinton's] election campaign." Mr. Clinton is expected to make human rights consideration a major element of his foreign policy, which is yet to be defined. The Galindo Pohl report said that between January and July, there were 224 publicly reported executions in Iran, some of drug traffickers and some of political prisoners. It also charged that torture was practiced systematically in Iranian prisons "to obtain confessions or to prepare evidence to incriminate people who apparently have no knowledge of the alleged offenses under investigation." This apparently violates Article 38 of the constitution of the Islamic republic, the report said. Noting the growth of anti-government activities, it cited a demonstration in Mashad, where Revolutionary Guards and other security forces fired indiscriminately at a crowd. In rejecting the report, Tehran radio accused the United Nations and the human rights organization Amnesty International of working "with the big powers" to exert pressure on Iran. Various forms of Islam would never seem "logical" from a Western perspective, according to the Tehran broadcast monitored in Nicosia, Cyprus. Massoud Rajavi, head of the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran, issued a statement calling on "all governments and nations to impose an arms and oil embargo on this anti-human regime and recognize its democratic alternative." Noting that "excessive repression impedes access to the original information," Mr. Rajavi said the Galindo Pohl report "offers a glimpse of the colossal violations of the most fundamental human rights in Iran." Firuz Kazemzadeh, spokesman for the American Bahai, said the U.N. report "provides detailed evidence that the Iranian government has renewed its sinister attacks on Bahais." For years, the Bahais have complained of being victims of Iran's Islamic rulers. The religion, an offshoot of Islam, advocates equality of the sexes, the abolition of extremes of wealth and poverty, and traditional morality paralleling the Ten Commandments. The Galindo Pohl report said that a Bahai man was executed "for no apparent reason" and that "oppression of the religion has been stepped up with arrest and detention continuing." The Bahais say about 200 members of their faith have been executed in Iran since the Islamic revolution in 1979. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM