Zoroastrians make Iran pilgrimage
BBC News
Thursday, 17 June, 2004
Members of Iran's dwindling Zoroastrian community are making their annual pilgrimage to the temple in the rocky mountain of Chakchak.
It is believed the last Zoroastrian princess sheltered from the Muslims in a cave on Chakchak in AD640.
The faith was founded in about 600BC by the Persian prophet Zarathustra who believed he had seen visions of a God he called Ahura Mazda.
Zoroastrian rule was driven out of modern-day Iran by the Muslim Arab invasion 1400 years ago.
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EU-Iran Human Rights Talks
•We have received no information about the Iran-EU human rights roundtable held in Tehran earlier this week, vice chair of the international federation of human rights societies tells Radio Farda. Lahiji who heads the Paris-based society for defense of human rights in Iran, adds that Iran and EU rejected requests by this organization and several other independent human rights groups for attending the meetings. The only human rights organization invited to the talks was the Amnesty International. (Amir-Mosaddegh Katouzian)
•The Islamic Republic rejects secular and liberal concept of human rights, deputy judiciary chief Mohammad-Javad Larijani said at the end of EU-Iran human rights talks in Tehran.
•Human rights conditions in Iran are better than that of neighboring countries, President Khatami said. He added that, for improving human rights conditions, “we have to compare ourselves not with the west but with neighboring countries.
http://www.radiofarda.com/transcripts/topstory/2004/06/20040616_1430_0410_1257_EN.asp