No 264 News Bulletin of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran 31 MARCH 2008

Crackdown to intensify Celebrating the Prophet of Islam’s Birthday

in new Iranian year

B rig. Gen. Ismail Ahmadi-Moqadam,

chief of the Iranian regime’s State
Security Forces (SSF), stressed that the
plan known as “Boosting Public Security”
will continue to be “implemented” and
“not abandoned,” as part of the regime’s
intensification of its suppressive campaign
during the new Iranian calendar year.
Speaking to a gathering of border
regiment personnel in Paveh, western
Iran, he said that people may think
“these plans are temporary … the SSF is
determined and I promise people that the
plan will not be abandoned and it is not
going to end under any circumstances
and the trend is irreversible,” the state-run
news agency IRNA quoted on March 26,
2008.
Ahmadi-Moqadam spoke about
various methods to boost suppression
and said, “We will try to prevent minor
Continued on page 3
Friday prayer leader:
Majlis election fraudulent
Auvers-sur-Oise, France, March 22 - Mrs. Rajavi, Muslim personalities from France and elswhere
celebrate Prophet Mohammad’s birthday
O n the occasion of the birth of Prophet
Mohammad on March 22, 2008, Muslim
dignitaries from France and some Muslim countries
gathered in Auvers-sur-Oise north of Paris at the
residence of Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-
elect of the Iranian Resistance, Representatives
of Muslim communities from Morocco, Algeria,
Comoros, Mali, Turkey and a delegation of Iraqi
women were among the attendees.
Mrs. Rajavi commenced the celebratory
gathering by welcoming the participants, in
particular the Iraqi women who are fighting
Islamic fundamentalism in their homeland. She
emphasized that standing firm against the Iranian
regime, which is the worst enemy of God, on the
basis of the Quran’s teachings, is the best defense
world peace and security by seeking domination
over Iraq and moving rapidly to acquire nuclear
weapons.
Mrs. Rajavi also noted the regime’s efforts
to expand its brand of Islamic fundamentalism
to Palestine and Lebanon and spreading fear
and crises to other nations. She welcomed
the growing resistance to the regime in the
region and underscored the important role of
the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran
which represents the antithesis of the ruling
fundamentalist regime in Iran, advocating peace,
democracy and human rights.
Sheikh Khalil Merroun, director of the largest
mosque in France, expressed solidarity with the
gathering and in particular the Iraqi guests who

F riday prayer leader: Majlis elections were

fraudulent
Abolhassan Nouri, the Friday prayer leader
of Islam. This is especially crucial, Mrs. Rajavi
added, at a time the regime poses a major threat to
face great hardship in their country. Sheikh
Continued on page 2

in the southwestern city of Khoramshahr,

described the regime’s recent parliamentary
elections as “fraudulent.” The voters were
Tehran behind attacks in Iraq
enticed, intimidated, and votes were traded,
according to a report by a website close to former
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)
T he most senior US general in Iraq has said he has evidence that Iran was behind Sunday’s
bombardment of Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone.
Gen David Petraeus told the BBC on March 24, 2008, that he thought Tehran had trained,
commander Mohsen Rezai. equipped and funded insurgents who fired the barrage of mortars and rockets.
“If it wasn’t for my timely intervention, critics He said Iran was adding what he described as “lethal accelerants” to a very combustible mix.
[of the election process] would not have been freed In an interview with BBC world affairs editor, Gen Petraeus said violence in Iraq was being
[from detention],” the report quoted Nouri. perpetuated by Iran’s Quds Force, a branch of the regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
According to the website’s report, Nouri Continued on page 2
complained about “mistreatment of critics”
and accused Khoramshahr’s mayor of ignoring
reports of “widespread fraud.”
He said that the evidence revealing the frauds
were in the possession of some government
Exposing mullahs’ espionage network in Sweden
institutions. “Some people were transferred from On page 3
other constituencies to Khoramshahr to vote,”
Nouri added.
 REPORTS

Celebrating the Prophet ...
Continued from page 1
Merroun presented a specially printed copy
of Quran to Mrs. Rajavi as a good will gesture
towards the Resistance.
Mrs. Faezeh Obeidi, head of women’s section
in the Iraqi National Accord Movement led by
Mr. Ayad Allawi, former Iraqi Prime Minister,
conveyed Mr. Allawi’s message of support to
the Iranian Resistance. She told the gathering
about the situation in Iraq and the Iranian
regime’s meddling in her country and added that
deprived Iraqi women are encouraged by the role
of Mrs. Rajavi in leading the Resistance to the
clerical regime.
Mr. Ghalib Bin Sheikh, head of the
International Peace Federation and a distinguished
Muslim figure in France, wished success for the
Resistance and reiterated that his movement stood
by the Iranian Resistance to preserve justice.
Mrs. Faiq Abdulqader Latif, member of
Tikrit City Council, said that the Iraqi women are
the victims of the mullahs ruling Iran. Therefore,
she added, they stand in the same front with
the Resistance led by Mrs. Rajavi. She expressed
regret that the mullahs commit their
crimes under the name of Islam and
reassured that the Iraqi women would
confront all those who collaborate
with the criminal rulers in Tehran.
Mrs. Amira Abdulkarim Alaqabi,
an Iraqi journalist and the head of Iraqi
Association for Environment, said in
her remarks, “The rulers in Tehran
intend to destroy Iraq, the schools,
universities and academic institutions,
but we are determined to resist that
trend with the support of our brothers
and sisters in the People’s Mojahedin
Organization.” Faezeh Obeidi, head of women’s section in the Iraqi National
Accord Movement led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi (right)
Mrs. Mona Adnan Hossein, standing with Maryam Rajavi and three Iraqi women activists
president of the Voice of the Iraqi
Women’s Association and a journalist, told the together with my sister and my child where we
gathering that she was a victim of the mullahs’ were welcomed by its residents.”
regime in Iraq and added, “The clerical regime Regarding Ahmadinejad’s visit to Iraq, she
killed my husband before the eyes of my child said, “He went to Iraq to show how much he is
and me. I begged them to spare his life but they in control of the country, but thank God that
took no notice. They also killed my father because he failed and had to leave Iraq earlier than it was
of his hostility towards the mullahs. They drilled planned.” She expressed hopes that during the
his skull. While the government is refusing to new Iranian calendar year, the Iranian people
provide any help, I sought refuge in Ashraf City would depose of the clerical rulers.

Tehran behind attacks ...
Continued from page 1
“The rockets that were launched at the Green
Zone yesterday, for example... were Iranian-
provided, Iranian-made rockets,” he said, adding
that the groups that fired them were funded and
trained by the Quds Force.
“All of this is in complete violation of
promises made by President Ahmadinejad and
the other most senior Iranian leaders to their
Iraqi counterparts.”
Iran seeks to destabilize Iraq
– U.S. Vice-President
BAGHDAD (AP), March 25 — U.S. military
spokesman Rear Adm. Gregory Smith blamed
Iranian-backed Shiite militia factions for the
rocket attacks, which killed Iraqi civilians outside
the Green Zone.
Smith said the rockets were supplied by the
Quds Force, an elite unit of Iran’s Revolutionary
Guards.
According to the three U.S. commanders,
the militia has received fresh supplies of weapons
from Iran — contradicting repeated Iranian
denials that it is supporting Iraqi militias.
The weapons, the commanders said, included
rockets, armor-piercing roadside bombs and
anti-aircraft guns that could be effective against
low-flying helicopters.
Additionally, they said an infusion of cash
from Iran has been spent on new communication
centers equipped with computers with Internet
connections, fax machines and mobile satellite
telephones.
Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking
during a visit to Iraq this month, reiterated
Washington’s claim that Iran seeks to destabilize
Iraq through support of armed Shiite factions.
Iran funding militia and
criminals in Basra fighting -
President Bush
Voice of America, March 27 - President Bush,
speaking to Air Force personnel on a base in
the Midwest state of Ohio said, “Iraqi security
forces are waging a tough battle against militia
fighters and criminals in Basra, many of whom
have received arms and training and funding
from Iran.”
Iran behind clashes in Basra
CNN, Iraq correspondent, March 26 - What
we are seeing in Basra as what we are seeing in
the capital city, Baghdad, and the other places,
mostly in the south, is that Iranian-backed
factions fighting Iranian-backed factions. The
only difference is that some of them are in
uniform and some are not.
Iran backs every horse in the race. Some
even suggest that Iran has colluded to some
degree with al-Qaeda.
Green Zone - Baghdad
Iran does not want to see any one force
emerge that has strong hold on power and it does
not have significant influence either, especially if
it is the government. It wants a government that
it can work with.
Tehran wants to maintain a significant
influence over the government which it already
has. Even American commanders openly admit
that what the Americans have been doing by
default is to consolidate Iranian influence in Iraq.
There is a security situation in Iraq. Life in
Basra is a nightmare and daily life is affected. That
is happening through a number of factions; some
factions are within the army, some within the
police, within the provincial council or provincial
government, and the governor himself. Iran has
finger in all of these pies and for now it suits them
to see this instability. This is something that the
Americans, quite confidently, can see.

2 IRAN LIBERATION - MARCH 31, 2008


Exposing mullahs’ espionage
network in Sweden
M ullahs’ network for espionage and export of
fundamentalism in Sweden was unveiled by
the representative office of the National Council
of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) at a press conference
in Stockholm on March 11, 2008.
The information was unveiled by Mr. Parviz
Khazai, the NCRI’s representative in Nordic
countries. Mrs. Bente Kraugerud, lawyer and
jurist from Norway and Ms. Haleh Pourkeramati,
member of the NCRI, also joined Mr. Khazai in
the panel.
Two other members of the NCRI residing in
Sweden, Mr. Manouchehr Arastoupour, a world
veteran canoe/kayak champion, and Mr. Shapour
Bastansiyar, a renowned musician and leader
of orchestra, also exposed some of the Iranian
regime’s Intelligence Ministry’s campaigns against
members of the Iranian Resistance and their own
families in Sweden. They spoke about threatening
calls and mail their families and themselves have
been receiving in order to discourage them from
continuing with their activities.
Key intelligence agents in the regime’s
network in Sweden include Javad Mohammadi,
Hamid Esfahani (manager of Radio Salam), Vaezi
(representing Ali Khamenei in Scandinavia), and
Hosseini (a clergy at Imam Ali mosque). Hassan
Qashqavi, the regime’s ambassador in Sweden,
plays a key role in the network.
Dissident Ayatollah on
hunger strike in
Evin prison
A yatollah Yaasoub-Eddin Rastegari
Jouybari, a stern opponent of the
clerical rule in Iran, has gone on a
hunger strike in Tehran’s notorious Evin
prison in protest to his unjust detention
and inhumane treatment, NCRI’s
Committee on Religious Freedom
reported on March 22, 2008.
According to Ayatollah Rastegari’s
family, the prison guards had threatened
him with a mock execution. He remains
in poor health after three weeks of
hunger strike.
Over the years, he has resisted
pressures by the regime and refused
to endorse the ruling faction as being
Islamic. Ayatollah Rastegari is the
author of a number of books on Islam.
REPORTS
Based on the Resistance’s
sources inside Iran, the NCRI
representative disclosed
for the first time the name
of the number two man
at the regime’s embassy in
Stockholm, Saleh Majd, who From left in the panel, Haleh Pourkeramati, Parviz Khazai and Bente Kraugerud
was expelled for his espionage
activities against exiled Iranians in Sweden back
in January 2008.
Mr. Khazai stressed that the task of the
individuals named and the regime’s front
organizations is to spy on Iranian exiles and
create fear among Iranians residing in Sweden.
To this end, the regime intends to inflict blows
against the main Iranian opposition - the NCRI
and the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran
(PMOI) as its leading member - and to promote
fundamentalism.
NCRI’s Nordic representative called on the
government of Sweden to expose the clerical
regime’s spies in a bid to protect Iranian exiles
who have sought refuge in Sweden.
Ms. Pourkeramati unveiled the role of the
regime’s agents outside Iran who pose as former
members of the Resistance and the PMOI, as
well as the activities of front organizations that
act as essential part of the regime’s espionage
network.
Crackdown to intensify in new Iranian year
Continued from page 1
crimes and robberies by doubling our efforts,
by ordinary and undercover agents, increasing
the number of patrols and police stations,
equipping constabularies, monitoring systems
and undercover inspectors,” IRNA added.
Meanwhile, Brig. Gen. Hossein Zolfaqari,
deputy commander of the SSF, declared that
new forces would be deployed under various
names to spread suppression. “The neighborhood
watch plan will be expanded with the help of
people… honorary police force planning to get
people more involved in the promotion of law
The above frames are taken from a video clip secretly passed to the Resistance’s network inside
Iran, showing SSF officers set alight a young man’s hair while in their custody.
IRAN LIBERATION - MARCH 31, 2008
Iranian exiles urge Sweden to
cut ties with Tehran
The Associated Pr March 11 - An Iranian
opposition group on Tuesday urged the
Swedish government to cut relations with
Tehran after the expulsion of an Iranian
diplomat accused of spying on exiles.
“This is the tip of a big iceberg given
the magnitude of the (Iranian) regime’s
infiltration in Sweden,” said Perviz Khazai.
Sweden expelled an Iranian diplomat
in January, but did not say why at the time.
However, a Swedish Foreign Ministry official
on Tuesday confirmed press reports that
the diplomat was believed to have spied on
Iranian exiles in Sweden. At a news conference
in Stockholm, Iranian exiles said they were
being harassed by the Iranian regime in
threatening telephone calls and letters.
and order is among other measures by the SSF
this year,” State-run TV reported on March 26.
Remarks by the SSF commander, a close
confidant of mullahs’ president Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, indicates that the clerical regime,
engulfed in domestic and international crises, is
planning to raise the level of brutal suppression
to new heights. This follows the sham Majlis
(parliamentary) elections and the maturity
of the regime’s internal contradictions while
efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and export
of fundamentalism and terrorism have been
dramatically stepped up.
3
 ARTICLES
March 26, 2008
Iran’s Resistance
By Professor Lord Alton of Liverpool
March 26 - Good news came earlier this
month, when the UN Security Council
adopted a third sanctions resolution
against the Iranian regime over its illegal nuclear weapons activity. Resolution
1803, which includes an outright ban on travel by officials involved in
Tehran’s nuclear and missile programmes, gives the autocratic rulers three
months to comply with the demands of the UN nuclear watchdog to
suspend uranium enrichment and reprocessing or face new sanctions.
But even as the resolution was being adopted by 14-0 with only one
abstention - Indonesia - the regime’s officials vowed that, regardless of
however many resolutions were adopted at the UN, the Islamic Republic
would never halt its uranium enrichment activities.
Tehran’s belligerent attitude stems from the West’s half-hearted policy
of countering its unlawful activities. Despite its vociferous posture against
the regime at the UN, the West is in fact assisting the regime on another
front. In particular, Britain is spearheading an effort to crack down on the
only effective opposition movement in an effort to win concessions from
Tehran.
The theocratic regime’s weak point is its lack of popular support.
According to the National Council of Resistance of Iran, students and
women were responsible for a major portion of the more than 5,000 anti-
government protests that were held in Iran last year alone.
If the international community lends support to the Iranian people
and their resistance movement, this would undoubtedly force the regime
to think twice before unilaterally pressing on with its clandestine nuclear
projects and meddling in the affairs of regional states. It would also
encourage the population to come out in greater numbers against the
regime which is becoming increasingly isolated on the international scene.
Remarkably, at a time when we should be isolating the regime for its
sponsorship of terror at home and abroad, the UK government is hampering
the efforts of the Iranian opposition to bring about change in Iran.
Since 2001, it has banned the main democratic Iranian opposition
group, the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI) at the behest
of Tehran’s rulers. In 2002, it encouraged the EU to ban the group as well.
When in December 2006, the European court of first instance
ordered the EU to lift the ban on the PMOI, it was the UK government
that pressured the EU council of ministers to ignore the court ruling and
maintain the ban.
Worse still, when on November 30, 2007, the UK high court’s
Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission (POAC) ruled unequivocally
that the PMOI is “not concerned in terrorism” and ordered the Home
Secretary to lift the “flawed” and “perverse” ban, the government simply
ignored the ruling in order to further appease a regime which has executed
over 120,000 members of the PMOI and continues to employ more than
174 forms of torture in its notorious prisons.
It is clear that as long as Britain and the EU continue to stifle the
very force working tirelessly to end the mullahs’ despotic rule, the regime
would feel secure enough to brazenly ignore however many security council
ultimatums it receives.
Whitehall should now do the right thing by lifting the ban on the
PMOI and allowing the Iranian people and their resistance to bring about
democratic change in Iran. Such action, coupled with comprehensive
sanctions against the regime at the UN, would be an appropriate response
and pave the way for fundamental change in Iran.
4 IRAN LIBERATION - MARCH 31, 2008
For information on NCRI and news, please visit our website:
March 24, 2008
Mullahs fiddle the figures
By Lord Corbett of Castle Vale, Chair of the British
Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom
March 24 - What, asked the young man outside
the mosque in Qom the day before Iran’s general
election last week, is the point of voting, “when the results are known in
advance?”
The Guardian reporter, Julian Borger, said Mujtaba Mivehchizadeh and his
mates worried about youth unemployment and galloping inflation in a country
where seven out of ten are under the age of 30.
The farce of the elections was illustrated during the day itself when the
state-run news agency ISNA reported a turnout of 124 per cent at Varzaqan,
East Azerbaijan. Earlier some 2,700 would-be candidates were barred for ‘un-
Islamic sentiments’ by the unelected religious Guardians’ Council, including
former MPs and ministers.
No wonder the EU Presidency dubbed the poll as ‘neither fair nor free’,
adding that they ‘did not allow for truly competitive elections’.
The mullahs used every fiddle going to boost turn-out figures. Brigadier
General Alireza Afshar, director of elections in the Ministry of Interior, simply
ignored figures from the National Statistics Bureau showing 49,500,000 people of
voting age by clipping six million off the figure to swell the phantom turn-out. And
votes could be bought for $25 in Abidan, $15 in Gilan and up to $50 in Elam, with
a free lunch thrown in for rural voters bussed into urban polling stations.
Iran’s fanatical theocracy, underpinned by the Revolutionary Guard which
the US labels as a terrorist organization, dare not risk fair and free elections. The
Iranian Resistance, which monitored turn-out at 25,000 of the 45,000 polling
stations, claims that only five in every 100 people voted, responding to its call
for a boycott.
The mullahs have not just made themselves look silly at home and abroad,
but know whatever support they may have had is fast evaporating. The 95 per
cent who stayed at home means that military and government workers too
refused to take part in this polling stunt.
In any case the parliament – Majlis – is only consultative, with the theocrats
on the Guardians’ Council and the appointed-for-life Supreme Leader having
a veto over it. So a double lock: permit only the candidates who can be trusted
to stand and then do not entirely trust them.
Whichever of the four religious factions is said to be on the up, the fact is
that since the Revolutionary Guards installed one of their own as President, in
the shape of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the extremists have tightened their grip.
They all have the same agenda, so it is just a matter of the degree of repression.
No faction is calling for free elections, an end to public hangings from cranes,
or of amputations and eye gougings.
The long-suffering public wonders why petrol is rationed in a country with
the world’s fourth-largest oil reserves, and why there is insufficient refining
capacity when it can seemingly afford nuclear weapons development, with
rampant inflation and a highly educated people with far too few jobs on offer.
The extremist regime will doubtless push on with its nuclear programme,
now scattered across at least 12 sites, the better to conceal and continue the
brutal suppression of those who dissent.
This election is yet another signal to our own and other governments to stop
appeasing the mullahs and to treat the Resistance as allies in the campaign to turn
back the menace of rampant fundamentalism. It helps to kill British and other
coalition troops in Iraq, helps thwart the Palestinian peace process by financing
and arming Hamas and bids, through Hezbollah, to unseat a fragile democracy
in Lebanon. What other incentive does the UK need to back the millions in Iran
who cry freedom rather than those who have stolen it from them?
www.ncr-iran.org