December 2000, Week 3 |
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| FarsiNet News Archive
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December 2000, Week 3 |
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Weather
forcast of 50 cities in Iran
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Chess-India's Anand to Meet Shirov in Final
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NEW DELHI, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Indian Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand advanced to the final of the World Chess Championship on Friday after holding England's Michael Adams to a draw. Anand will meet Spain's Alexei Shirov, who accounted for Russia's Alexander Grischuk in the other semifinal, in the title decider to be played in Iran's capital Tehran from December 20. Both Anand and Shirov won their matches 2.5-1.5. Xie Jun of China won the world title in the women's section after holding Qin Kanying to a draw.
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Khatami Accepts Resignation of Reformist Minister
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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Bowing to pressure from hard-liners, President Mohammad Khatami on Thursday accepted the resignation of his reformist culture minister, the last bold supporter of his drive to broaden freedoms in Iranian society.
The official Tehran television said Khatami immediately appointed Ataollah Mohajerani as chairman of the International Center for Dialogue Among Civilizations, a government-run think tank, and named Mohajerani's deputy, Ahmad Masjed Jameii, as acting culture minister. The Culture Ministry is responsible for licensing publications, and Mohajerani had angered hard-liners for his efforts to ease press control. He played a cat-and-mouse game with them -- closing newspapers in accordance with court orders and then allowing them to continue publishing under new names. Mohajerani, a key ally of Khatami, was impeached in May 1999 by hard-liners who accused him of allowing insults to Islam and honoring writers hostile to the Islamic republic. He survived the impeachment, but sustained attacks against him prompted Mohajerani to submit his resignation in April. Khatami refused to accept it then. Unlike Mohajerani, Jameii is a non-controversial official who has spent much of his time promoting religion. Iran holds presidential elections in May. Khatami has said he has not decided whether to seek re-election, but those close to him say he is certain to run. "Khatami's reforms will face even greater difficulties after this resignation," analyst Saeed Laylaz said. "The consequences of the resignation will definitely be felt in the elections. Mohajerani was the most popular -- maybe the only popular -- minister in Khatami's Cabinet." Khatami still has huge public support, but young Iranians who were largely responsible for his 1997 election have been critical of a president they see as too weak against the hard-liners. Mohajerani's resignation is a new setback to Khatami's pro-democracy reforms. In April, when the hard-liners lost control of the Majlis, or parliament, for the first time since the 1979 Islamic revolution, they intensified a crackdown on Khatami's drive to introduce greater freedoms. Since then, more than two dozen publications -- nearly all pro-democracy newspapers -- have been closed. Prominent allies of the president, including journalists, have been either jailed or harassed by courts controlled by the hard-liners. Last year, another powerful reformist, Interior Minister Abdollah Nouri, was forced to resign by the hard-liners. He was sentenced to five years in prison for publishing sacrilegious articles and opposing the teachings of Iran's revered revolutionary leader, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The hard-liners control key institutions, such as the judiciary, military and the office of the all-powerful spiritual leader, held by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. They have opposed newspapers being allowed to speak out against the country's authoritarian Islamic system and the loosening of puritanical Islamic laws. Mohajerani's wife, Jamileh Kadivar, the most popular female legislator, is facing trial in Iran, accused of harming Iranian security by taking part in a Berlin conference in April that hard-liners have condemned as opposed to Iran and its Islamic principles.
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Iran's Top Daily Ordered to Limit Distribution
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TEHRAN, (Reuters) - The conservative Press Court has ordered Iran's best-selling newspaper to restrict its distribution to the city limits of Tehran, the official IRNA news agency said on Monday.
But the editor-in-chief of the daily Hamshahri told Reuters he did not recognise the court's authority to impose the order. IRNA said Judge Saeed Mortazavi had directed the newspaper and state officials responsible for the press to cut back on the distribution of Hamshahri, which sells about 460,000 copies per day nationwide. The judge, who has enforced the mass closure of a string of pro-reform newspapers dating back to April, said Iran's revised press law required Hamshahri, published by the city of Tehran, to limit sales to the city alone. "The scope of activity of each publication should correspond with the scope of activity of the publisher," the judge said in a letter to the Ministry of Culture, which is responsible for press affairs. "Its geographical limits of distribution should be the geographical limits of the legal entity owning it, as well," the judge concluded. A copy was also sent to the newspaper. The newspaper, Iran's first colour daily and known more for its cultural and lifestyle reporting than for political muckraking, has historically sold well across Iran. Mohammad Atrianfar, Hamshahri's editor-in-chief, said the judge had improperly sought to make part of the press law retroactive, and he vowed to carry on with national distribution unless ordered otherwise by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. "Hamshahri was published for seven years before the press law was reviewed," Atrianfar said. "New additions to the law cannot be retroactive unless it is stated in the law. This cannot be used as an excuse to limit Hamshahri." He said the judge's order had also failed to distinguish between publication and distribution, as spelled out in the law. IRNA said the order followed a complaint by the head of Tehran province justice department, whose office has successfully forced the closure of some 30 independent and pro- reform publications.
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Iran Court Begins Trial of Messianic Rebel Group
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TEHRAN,(Reuters) - An Iranian Islamic revolutionary court has begun the trial of a group of messianic Shi'ite Muslim rebels charged with attempting to assassinate a senior judge, the official IRNA news agency said late on Saturday.
Press reports say 30 members of the Mahdaviat group were to stand trial for the 1999 attempted assassination of the Tehran judiciary chief and cleric Ali Razini who was badly wounded when attackers on motorcycles attached a bomb to his official car. The group has also been linked to plots against President Mohammad Khatami and his predecessor, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, as well as stealing arms from state depots. The trial, like many in Iran, was held behind closed doors and the outcome of the first hearing was not immediately clear. Mahdaviat, led by the grandson of a prominent scholar and cleric who died before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, takes its name from the 12th Imam, the Mahdi, whom Shi'ites believe will return one day to usher in an era of perfect justice. Security officials have said Mahdaviat, numbering between 30 to 34 members, sought to eliminate anyone they saw as an obstacle to the return of the Mahdi, who went into hiding in the year 874. The group, observers say, is on the violent, extremist fringe of traditionalist Shi'ite opposition to clerical rule in the Islamic Republic which argues that religion has been polluted by direct involvement in politics. |
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