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February, 1997.

16 February, 97
Mass Arrest of Iranian Oil Workers -
Thousands of Iran's oil workers from the Tehran refinery, took to the streets yesterday and marched towards the oil ministry on Sunday. The peacefull demonstration by the workers asking for the ministry's promises to be met was broken up by the Revolutionary Guards and the Iranian secret police. According to eyewitness accounts, 13 busloads of demonstrators were arrested and their faith is as yet unknown.
Unconfirmed reports also say that other workers from the Abadan oil refinery were due to join the Tehran demonstrators. It is not clear if the oil production has been affected by the protest.
IRNA, the official Iranain news agency stated that only a few dozens of workers have stayed away from work and they have been instructed to go back immediately.
N.M.I.R condemns the arrest of the oil workers during a peaceful demonstration and asks all the Iranians to support the release of those detained and show solidarity with our oil workers in any way they can.

13 February, 97
Iran Increases the Reward to Kill Salman Rushdie-
Ayatollah Sanei, the head of the government appointed 15 Khordad foundation was reported in Iranian newspapers to have increased the reward to kill Salman Rushdie by another $500,000. He also said the money would go to whoever kills Rushdie, Muslim or non-Muslim and urged his bodyguards to carry out the task.
Although Rafsanjani, says the foundation is independent of the government and does not reflect the views of the government, he can not deny that Ayatollah Sanei is appointed by his government.
The London based Times newspaper saw only two options for Britain, either to continue with the "critical dialogue" advocated by Germany and do away with basic principles or to participate in the sanctions led by the US. The paper also wrote that in the light of the events during the Mykonos trial, Germany's "critical dialogue" option is now surely completely bankrupt and has yielded nothing.
The Guardian quoted Rushdie as saying ``the critical dialogue with Iran.. .has achieved absolutely nothing. It is a very useful fig leaf for the European Union.''
The British Foreign Office says, ``We condemn the bounty, as we condemn the fatwa itself, as an outrageous infringement of Rushdie's fundamental rights.''

10 February, 97
Iran Envoy to be Expelled From Turkey-
A senior Turkish politician says Iran's controversial ambassador to Ankara is to leave Turkey.
The private ATV channel reports the secretary-general of the ruling Welfare Party, Oguzhan Asilturk, did not say when Iranian Ambassador Mohammed Reza Bagheri will leave.
Three opposition parties and several mainstream newspapers have urged the ambassador's expulsion after he made a speech Saturday in favor of Turkey's adoption of Islamic law or sharia.

Low Turnout for Election Re-runs -
The turnout for the re-run of the annulled elections in Iran was embarassingly low. These elections were held after "unfavourable" candidates had won the local elections, even though they had previously been approved by the Guardian Council !!.

Demo for Faraj Sarkuhi -
Around 80 people turned up today outside the Iranian embassy in London to protest at the re-arrest of Faraj Sarkuhi, his brother and his personal assistant.
The demonstrators included British literary figures from P.E.N and Iranian opposition groups.
There was also representatives from the media including the BBC Persian world service providing coverage of the event.
Last week the Guardian newspaper devoted a whole page and printed the full text of Faraj Sarkuhi's smuggled letter before his re-arrest.

Iran Desperate to Stop the Mykonos Trial -
Iran is once again trying to influence the Mykonos trial in Berlin. According to Hans Ehrig (defense attorney of private plaintiffs), Iran has sent a message to the party whose members were killed. In this message the mullahs have demanded that the relatives of the victims withdraw their complaint in exchange for several political prisoners to be released subsequently. Otherwise, "..Iran will attack this party with all available resources..".
According to Ehrig, Jalal Talebani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan has been the carrier of this message.

06 February, 97
Earthquake in Khorasan Province- Iran's government news agency says two strong earthquakes and aftershocks in northeastern Iran may have killed at least 60 people and injured scores.
The governor of Bojnourd told the Islamic Republic News Agency that 55 people had been killed Tuesday and 153 injured. Bojnourd is located near the Turkmenistan border about 350 miles (565 km) east of Tehran. The quake registered 6.1 on the Richter scale.
The agency says 14 neighboring villages in the mountainous region were destroyed and 31 extensively damaged. The report was monitored in London.
The governor told the agency relief teams were cut off from some of the villages. More casualties were feared. The agency says more aftershocks shook Khorassan province into the night. The agency says four people were killed and 160 injured in the Khorassan town of Shirvan. Relief agency officials said 20 villages in its vicinity had been extensively damaged. The Geophysics Institute of Mashhad University says the epicenter of the first quake was in Bojnourd. The institute recorded more than 160 aftershocks.
On June 21, 1990, more than 40,000 people were killed by a 7.7- magnitude earthquake in northern Iran.

02 February, 97
(RSF/IFEX) - A letter dated 2 January 1997 and written by Faraj Sarkoohi, editor-in-chief of the monthly literary magazine "Adineh", was made public on 30 January by his brother, who is a refugee in Sweden. In the letter, Sarkoohi states that "I am expecting at any moment that information agents will come and arrest me, place me in prison once again, torture and finally kill me, masking their crime as a suicide." He adds that "I was assaulted...I was brutalised...I was insulted...and during the night a security agent, who presented himself as a senior official, told me that I must pay for the others...so that the intellectuals are kept in their place." In regard to his disappearance for more than a month in late 1996, Sarkoohi claims that "I was forced to write lies and repeat them in front of a camera in order to `confess' that I had connections to the German and French cultural attaches in Iran, that I was one of their agents, a spy on their payroll...."

MAPUTO, Mozambique - The Mozambican government has denied as false a report carried on Wednesday in the Johannesburg newspaper "The Star", according to which it has signed an agreement with Iran to allow submarines from Teheran to use the ports of Maputo, Beira and Nacala. The paper, citing anonymous western intelligence sources, had claimed that the submarines would use the Mozambican ports for resupply and rest purposes. Contacted by the Mozambican News Agency (AIM) on Wednesday night, Mozambican Foreign Minister, Leonardo Simao, dismissed the story. "We aren't doing anything of the sort", he said, adding that "somebody must have made a misunderstanding".

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