CONSERVATIVES IN A REMAKE OF CHAIN MURDERS
PARIS, 15 Feb. (IPS) In a letter to the Iranian leaders, the international press watchdog Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF, or Reporters Without Borders) and the Rome-based Association of Iranian Journalists Abroad (AIJA) protested against the summoning of several dissident journalists and intellectuals by a unit of the Law Enforcement Forces known as the Department of Public Places.
The Department usually deals with crimes of a "moral" nature and vice.
"We are worried about this wave of interrogations, which appear to be a case of the police interfering in journalists' private lives", stated Robert Ménard, Secretary-General of the Paris-based press organisation, in a letter to the Iranian President Mohammad Khatami.
"We are asking you to use your influence to put a stop to these illegal interrogations", he added.
For its part, the AIJA observed that the summoning of intellectual dissidents by the LEF’s Public Places constitutes a remake of the period that led to the "chain killing" saga of 1998, when high-ranking officers of the Intelligence Ministry, obeing religious orders from senior clerics, murdered savagely several intellectual and politician dissidents, including Mr. Dariush Foroohar, the leader of the secularit Iranian People Party and his wife, Parvaneh.
Philosopher Dariush Shayegan, journalists Firooz Gooran, Mrs. Nooshabeh Amiri, Hooshang Asadi, and Ali Dehbashi , lawyers Mohammad Ali Safari and Naser Zarafshan are among a few that had been summoned by this Department of the LEF, interrogated, threatened and ordered to keep silence or they would be silenced.
In an interview with the Persian service of Radio France Internationale, Mr. Gooran said the interrogators knew things about him that showed that they were not ordinary policemen, but members of the security and intelligence services.
According to Mr. Ali Asqar Hadizadeh, An outspoken reformist MM (Member of the Majles) the summoned people were "questioned about the past, their political and religious convictions, their activities and all these in a very insulting manner.
As the authorities, particularly the government and the leader-controlled Judiciary remained silent over the surprising summoning, Iranian organisations for the defence of the press expressed concern over the lives and activities of journalists, intellectuals and artists.
Journalists interrogated by the Police said they had no doubt that the Public Place Department was a "front" for an intelligence and security unit that works under the direct control of Ayatollah Khameneh'i, the leader of the Islamic Republic.
Addressing Ayatollah Mahmood Hashemi-Shahroodi, the Head of the Islamic Judiciary, Mr. Hadizadeh asked for the reasons behind the summoning of intellectuals by the LEF. ENDS LEF SUMMONING 15202