Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS)
Vezarat-e Ettela'at va Amniat-e Keshvar (VEVAK)
Domestic Operations
Religious activity in Iran was monitored closely by the MOIS. Adherents of recognized religious minorities were not required to register individually with the Government. However, their community, religious, and cultural organizations, as well as schools and public events, were monitored closely. Baha'is were not recognized by the Government as a legitimate religious community and they were considered heretics belonging to an outlawed political organization. Registration of Baha'is was a police function. Evangelical Christian groups were pressured by government authorities to compile and hand over membership lists for their congregations. However, evangelicals resisted this demand. Non-Muslim owners of grocery shops were required to indicate their religious affiliation on the fronts of their shops.
Of the unregistered parties within Iran, some such as the "Iran Nation Party" had been tolerated. However, in November 1998 the leader of that party, Dariush Forouhar, and his wife Parvaneh Forouhar were murdered by unknown assailants. Three senior members of INP were arrested at the outbreak of the street riots in July 1999, accused of provoking riots and using anti-Islamic slogans. Nine activists were reportedly killed in the 1990s.
Prominent political dissidents who disappeared in 1998 were Pirouz Davani in August and Javad Sharif in November. A spate of disappearances in late 1998 also included prominent writers and intellectuals, with Mohammad Mokhtari and Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh later found dead. Though several senior figures of the leadership blamed the disappearances and murders on "foreign hands," it was revealed that active-duty agents of the Ministry of Intelligence had carried out the killings. Minister of Intelligence Qorban Ali Dori-Najafabadi and several of his senior deputies resigned their posts following these revelations.
In June 1999 the Military Prosecutor's Office released an initial report on the investigation, identifying a cell from within the Ministry of Intelligence led by four "main agents" as responsible for the murders. The leader among the agents reportedly was a former Deputy Minister of Intelligence, Saeed Emami, who, the government stated, had committed suicide in prison by drinking a toxic hair removal solution several days prior to release of the report. The report also indicated that 23 persons had been arrested in association with the murders and that a further 33 were summoned for interrogation.
In the early part of the year 2000, the Government announced that 18 men would stand trial in connection with the killings. The trial began in late December in a military court. The proceedings were closed. However, news reports indicated that 15 defendants pleaded guilty during the opening stages of the trial. The identity of the defendants was unknown, but former Minister of Intelligence Dori-Najafabadi had not been charged. Reform-oriented journalists and prominent cultural figures declared publicly their demands for a full accounting in the case and speculated that responsibility for ordering the murders lay at the highest level of the Government. Several citizens, including prominent investigative journalist Akbar Ganji, were arrested in connection with statements they have made about the case.
On 27 January 2001, fifteen intelligence officers were convicted for their involvement in the serial murders of liberal intellectuals in 1998/99, but the Supreme Court quashed the verdict in August 2001 and ordered a re-examination of the case. Press reports in late May 2002 indicated that two death sentences had been commuted and four unnamed individuals sentenced, but there had been no formal confirmation of this. Five of the interrogators had been jailed on charges of mistreatment of the accused. The lawyer representing some of the victims, Naser Zarafshan, had also been given a prison sentence on charges of exposing state secrets.
The MOIS was thought to believe that the United States was attempting to start one of the color revolutions as had happened in Ukraine and Georgia, or otherwise destablize the Iranian regime. The Ministry arrested various people under espionage charges, often claiming that these individuals worked for the United States or Israel, targeted against nuclear facilities in Iran. These concerns were publically voiced by various Iranian authorities as international pressure became more accute over Iran's controversial nuclear program.
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