THE REGIME IS NOW MENACED BY ITS OWN "FATHER", THE FEDA'IYAN ESLAM

By Safa Haeri

PARIS 30^TH NOV. (IPS) One week after the savage assassination of Dariush Foruhar, 70 and his 55 years-old wife, Parvaneh Eskandari and as protest movements and demonstrations against this outrageous murder continue all over the world, including in Iran itself, the Islamic regime, largely denounced as the mastermind of the double killing is showing the first signs of its own preoccupations concerning the renewal of the activities by fundamentalist Islamist groups that also forms the very pillars of the Islamic Republic.

Dariush and Parvaneh were stabbed to death with 15 strokes of dagger, by still unidentified but professional killers that left their "trade mark" by cutting the head of Mr. Foruhar and one breast of his wife -- an old Islamic method of punishing the "infidels" --.

Leader of the of Iranian People's Party (IPP), one of the oldest but small secular-based Iranian political organisations formed more than 50 years ago, both husband and wife were known for their nationalist and secular views as well as for their harsh criticism of the Islamic Republic, calling constantly and openly for the complete, but peaceful "eradication" of the "velayate faqih" system, or the rule of a cleric, in the present case the ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, presented as being the representative of God and his prophet Mohammad into a democratic, parliamentary republic. Although officially banned, yet the clerical authorities tolerated the IPP.

The blood covered bodies, Mr Foruhar's in his study on the ground level and that of his wife in the first floor of their modest residence in central Tehran were discovered by neighbours and family members on Sunday 22^nd November. But informed sources that were able to see the scene before the arrival of the authorities said they had been murdered "very probably" Saturday evening.

The way the couple was assassinated reminded that of Dr Shahpour Bakhtiar, a close friend and comrade-in-arms of Mr. Foruhar who became the last Prime Minister of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. Mr. Bakhtiar was knifed to death in August 1992 in his residence in a Parisian suburb heavily guarded by French police, his head and hands cut off by a 4 member professional team of the Islamic Information Ministry, the exact replica of the former KGB, that had been send from Tehran.

Other secular and atheist political personalities and artists opposed to the present Islamic regime of Iran, Dr Reza Mazlouman, alias Kurosh Aria Manesh that would publish a staunchly anti Islamic newsletter from Paris and Fereydoun Farrokh Zad, an outstanding showman and brother of Miss Forouq Farrokh Zad, one of the nation's most acclaimed, admired and respected poets but hated by the religious as feminist and apostate, were assassinated in the same method.

More than 700 prominent intellectuals, scholars, members of liberal professions like doctors and architects and political personalities of almost all ideological tendencies, some of them former minister of the present regime that included also some dissident clerics signed a petition, denouncing the "abject" murder of the "nationalist heros", Dariush Foruhar and his wife Parvaneh Eskandari.

"We inform the Iranian people that, at a time that the region and our beloved country are in need of democracy more than ever, once again criminal hands of darkness and enemies of freedom and democracy savagely murdered 2 other heroic militants that all their life fought for an independent and democratic Iran", the petition said, announcing a mourning ceremony for today, Monday.

The petition, bearing a dramatic picture of Miss Parastou and Mr Arash, the daughter and the son of the murdered couple, both of them living in Germany and who returned to their native Iran to take part in the funeral and mourning ceremonies held for their parents was published in the pro-government daily "Etela'at".

Mr. Khatami himself denounced the assassination as a "repugnant crime" and directed the Interior Minister, the hojatoleslam Abdol-Vahed Musavi-Lari to form a special committee to investigate the murder

"This case will definitely be clarified. We will not hesitate for one moment. You will see that it will soon be discovered and the people will be informed," Musavi-Lari told a press conference.

According to the Minister, both the ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i and the president have "ordered" him to follow the case. "The government is determined to get to the root of the matter and deal with the culprits whoever they may be or whatever their position," he said, assuring that the "entire regime" was "resolved" to solve the case with authority.

"Some unclean, known or unknown hands are behind this attempt to destroy

the new atmosphere of law and order which the policy of the government," Mr. Musavi-Lari added, announcing vaguely that "some indications have been found, several people have been arrested and interrogated while some were being sought".

Asked if he had any clue as who the killers may be, the Minister said the authorities were still weighing various theories behind the murder case. "So far, we have no preference. I can't make a final judgement," he said.

The murder outraged the Iranians as never seen in the past tow decades. Thousands of people, including many students, chanting slogans such as "Taleban (meaning Iranian conservative clerics that rule the regime), shame on you, leave this country", or "Down with despotism", long life to Mossadegh (the former Iranian nationalist Premier who's name is associated with the nationalisation of Iranian oil industries, toppled in a CIA-orchestrated coup in 1953) "Long life to Dariush, long life to Parvaneh" and "freedom, freedom, always, always" participated at the funeral of the couple that was held on Thursday.

However, at the end of the ceremonies, well-known hooligans of the Ansar Hezbollah, a group formed and trained by the Information Ministry for the purpose of attacking meetings of the dissidents attacked the mourners while the police arrested 500 students. Latter on in the evening, several people, among them senior officials of the IPP and members and friends of the family were "visited and interrogated" in their residence by security agents.

But the death of Mr. Majid Sharif, a French-educated scholar and analyst in mysterious circumstances very similar to that of other intellectual dissidents like Mr. Zal Zadeh and Mir Ala'i, the news that Mr. Pirouz Davani, a secular politician close to Dariush Foruhar had been "executed" and the attack on a mini-bus carrying 13 American "businessmen and tourists" on Saturday 21^st November have visibly worried the rulers.

Mr Sharif was a former member of the Baghdad-based, Iraqi-backed, equipped and financed Mujahedeen Khalq Organisation (MKO) who, after having defected from the group had returned to Iran 2 years ago after having lived in France as a political where refugee, while completing his studies in Political Sciences.

A friend of Mr. Sharif who asked for anonymity disclosed, quoting "forensic sources" that the victim had received "knife stroke in his neck" that the authorities could not explained the reason.

For their part, family and colleagues observed that while Mr Sharif had left Tehran for Mash-had (the capital city of the north-eastern Province of Khorasan) for thee funeral of one of his friends, wearing a black dress, but in the morgue, he had a jumper", adding that it was known that the victim would go jogging every morning, as advised by doctors because of a cardiac insufficiency.

Co-ordinator of "Union for Democracy in Iran" specialising, among other activities, in investigating the "liquidation" of political prisoners in Iranian jails, Mr. Davani had "disappeared" 4 months ago.

According to a petition signed by 70 eminent personalities many of them close to the assassinated Foruhar's IPP and Iran Freedom Movement (IFM) of the late Mehdi Bazargan now led by Dr Ebrahim Yazdi, an Islam-based organisation that like the IPP, is banned but tolerated by the regime, Mr. Davani's mother died of a heart attack after she was told by unknown callers that her son had been "executed" because of his anti-regime, anti-Islam activities.

The responsibility of attack against the Americans was claimed by the Feda'iyan Eslam, the Iranian off shoot of the Ekhwan al Moslemin, or the Muslim Brotherhood, originally formed in Egypt by Hasan el Bana.

The organisation was created by Navab Safavi, an admirer and follower of el Bana who reached the fame after his organisation assassinated several secular intellectuals or politicians "accused" of spreading atheism or being "puppets" of the British or the American "imperialists", prominent among them are Ahmad Kasravi, a professed secular writer and philosopher, Abdol Hosein Hazhir, Ali Razm Ara and Hasanali Mansour, all of them Prime Ministers, as well as Hosein Fatemi, Dr Mossadeq's Foreign Minister. Safavi was finally executed in 1957.

With almost no exception, all the past and present influential clerical and civilian officials of the Islamic Republic, including the grand ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeiny, the founder of the regime, the present leader Ali Khameneh'i and the former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to name a few, were active members of this terrorist organisation that is also one of the oldest Iranian Islam-based political formation which, from behind the curtains, controls all the ruling circles and personalities.

In statement published in conservative newspapers, including "Jomhuri Eslami" (Islamic Republic), the mouthpiece of the ayatollah Khameneh'i, the group told the Foreign Minister that next time his administration would allow Americans to come to Iran, not only it will kill them, but also "cut his feet into pieces". In their first public demonstration, some of the group's members put fire to an American flag and shouted "death to America", a slogan that was not heard in public meetings for some months.

In a blunt warning to the president himself who championed the policy of "dialogue among cultures and civilisations" that includes the American ones", the paper reminded Mr. Khatami that based on the Constitution, the making and directing the foreign policy of the regime is the responsibility of the leader and no one else.

Earlier, senior ruling ayatollahs, chief among them Mohammad Yazdi, the hard line Head of the Judiciary and Ali Meshkini, the Speaker of the outgoing Assembly of Experts, both of them close friends of the leader, had publicly criticised the president and his Foreign Minister, Kamal Kharrazi for having cleared the visit of the 13 Americans they described as agents of the CIA and other American espionage agencies.

When questioned by hard line papers wanting to know who authorised the American to come to Iran, the Foreign Ministry, visibly afraid of open backlash from the pressure groups that are controlled by the leader, first said it was unaware of the presence of Americans in Iran. It then said the group consisted of businessmen and investors who came to consider ways of investing in Iran. Then it changed position, saying it did not know which administration had issued the visas and ended up by "admitting' that the consul general in Washington had issued the visas on his own and without asking authorisation from Tehran.

Obviously, all these latest events has worried the rulers who now more or less openly express their fear of seeing the Feda'iyan Eslam entering the political scene.

In an editorial published in "Etela'at", the hojatoleslam Mohammad Javad Hojjati Kermani, a jail mate of Mr. Foruhar who served` as political adviser to Mr. Khameneh'i when he was president, denounced the "utilisation" of the name of Feda'iyan Eslam and its founder, Navab Safavi by a "bunch of law breaking people" and warned that that "if those criminal hands that so savagely killed Dariush Foruhar and his wife, those hands that attacked the American are not cut at once, they will end, sooner or latter, to do the same with yourself".

During a meeting with the Minister and senior officials of the Information Ministry, president Khatami expressed his "anger" at both the murder of Mr and Mrs Foruhar and the attack against the American visitors. "Such acts could be interpreted as the weakness of the authority of our regime and system and must be dealt with severity" he told his audience, among them some of the very agents responsible for the murder of many opponents abroad, the death of many intellectual dissidents inside the country and probably the assassination of the leaders of the IPP.

While in Iran some newspapers and even officials in the government put the blame on "uncontrolled or controlled elements", outside, there is no doubt that the regime itself is at the origin of the dramatic events, as demonstrated by the verdict issued last year by the Berlin High Court that concluded that the "entire system, including its highest authorities are directly associated with the assassination of Iranian dissidents.

In recent demonstrations and meetings held in Berlin, Paris, London, Koln, Bonn, Stockholm, Washington, New York and Los Angeles, Iranian opposition groups and personalities out rightly named the Islamic Republic as "the culprit" responsible for the murder of the Foruhar couple as well as the "execution" of Mr. Davani or the death of Mr. Sharif as well as the murder of "hundreds" of other personalities opposed to the present Islamic regime.

Below comes some new messages of sympathy with the Foruhars and condemnation of the regime blamed for the murder:

• Responding to an appeal from the Swedish branch of the Centre of Iranian Political Prisoners in Exile, about 300 people gathered in Stockholm's city centre to condemn the killing of Iranian Mr. and Mrs Foruhar, Majid Sharif and Pirouz Davani as well as all other dissidents and "thousands" of political prisoners in prisons by the "terrorist Islamic regime" that speaks "no other language than that of knife, dagger and machine gun";
• The People's Feda'iyan Organisation of Iran said the brutal assassination of Mr. Foruhar and his wife by the "Islamic slaughter House" has, once again proved this bitter truth that this regime can not tolerate any opposition and responds the opponents with bullets and dagger;
• The Iranian national Conference reminds that the leaders of the IPP are assassinated at a time that some ruling clerical personalities like the president talk about democracy, freedom and the rule of law. "This tragic assassination is here to remind not only the Iranians but also the world opinion that the present rulers can not be trusted in any way;
• In an open letter to Mrs. Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner on

• The Iranian National Movement condemn the murder of Dariush and Parvaneh Foruhar, describing it as "a great and tragic loss" for all those who fight for the ideal of democracy and freedom for Iran and "invites" all Iranian opposition to create a "united and solid" front to bring down the present tyrants who, with this latest shameful action have also proved the degree of their fear and wickedness;
• "Deploring the pattern of harassment and killing of opposition figures in Iran", the New York-based Human Rights Watch expresses its "shock" about the killing of Dariush and Parvaneh Foruhar and in an open letter to president Khatami observes that the Foruhars "lived their lives under close government surveillance, with their telephone wiretapped and visitors to their house monitored".

• In a letter also addressed to the president, the dissident grand ayatollah Hosseinali Montazeri, himself placed under house arrest since last year and ill treated by the regime's agents acting on orders from the leader Khameneh'i, expresses his "deep sorrow and wrath" at the "brutal and hateful" assassination of Mr. Foruhar and his wife, that has "outraged" the public opinion.

• Eng. Hushang Kordestani says the assassination of Dariush and Parvaneh Foruhar whom I knew for 40 years was "almost unbeleivable".
• "The crime was so great that it even shocked some of the killers rulers. The regime that is behind this horrifying murder is trying hard to blame so-called "elements of darkness guided by foreign hands" to desacralise Islam and the Islamic Republic, but by committing such a crime, the regime has also made off with its propaganda in the Western hemisphere presenting itself as capable of establishing an open society.