EXECUTIVE BRANCH CONFRONTS EXISTENCE OF PARALLEL INTELLIGENCE ORGANIZATIONS.
President Hojatoleslam Mohammad Khatami's "housecleaning" of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) after the 1998 serial murders of dissidents is described as "one of the few genuine achievements to come out of his many confrontations with the conservative power structure" by Columbia University's Professor Gary Sick in the Autumn 2003 issue of "The Washington Quarterly" (
http://www.twq.com/03autumn/docs/03autumn_sick.pdf). The investigation into the serial murders led to the arrest of ultraconservative MOIS officials, Sick writes, and to the replacement of personnel associated with former MOIS chief Ali-Akbar Fallahian-Khuzestani.
Even if the MOIS is no longer a hard-line stronghold, as Sick indicates, that doesn't mean that hard-liners have not created alternative structures to it. Khatami and his reformist associates have now turned their attention to these institutional competitors.
Deputy speaker of parliament Mohammad Reza Khatami, secretary of the reformist Islamic Iran Participation Party and also the president's brother, warned in a 9 July open letter to the country's executive that organizations working in parallel with the MOIS are interfering with judicial proceedings against people detained on political charges, IRNA reported. The parliamentarian wrote that such institutions are violating the rights of these individuals and referred to constitutional bans on torture and solitary confinement. A report on this letter that appeared in the 10 July "Yas-i No" daily added that many of those working in the parallel institutions are the same people who were purged from the MOIS after the serial murders investigation.
Isfahan parliamentary representative Rajab Ali Mazrui said in a 9 July interview with ISNA that the parallel intelligence organizations became active about two years ago. "They have especially tried to build a case against reformists," he said.
Describing the actual form of these institutions, Shahr-i Qods and Shahriar parliamentary representative Mohammad Ali Kuzegar said that they could be divided into two categories, ISNA reported on 9 July. "One group is made up of the cliques that are operating outside state institutions," he said, and "Another group is made up of parallel organizations which have been set up by other institutions."
More details were provided by parliamentarian Mohsen Mirdamadi in the 19 July "Yas-i No." He said that the people purged from the MOIS continued and expanded their activities elsewhere, and "the intelligence apparatus of one of these organs in Tehran has three times the number of personnel that the MOIS has throughout the country." Not only are the confinement and torture of students and national-religious activists examples of the parallel organs' existence, he said, but so is the case of Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, who was killed while in detention.
President Khatami referred his brother's complaint about parallel intelligence organizations to the Committee for the Implementation and Supervision of the Constitution on 26 July, IRNA reported. Khatami established this organization in November 1997 to protect people's rights. The committee asked Mohammad Reza Khatami to provide it with evidence so it could pursue the complaint.
More recently, there have been complaints that the provincial supervisory offices being created by the Guardians Council for oversight of elections will have an intelligence function. Mohammad Sadeq Javadi-Hesar, the former managing director of the banned "Tus" daily, said that these offices would have more latitude in their activities than the MOIS, "Toseh" reported on 4 August. They would have the power to permanently monitor and survey individuals, whereas the MOIS only has this power for a limited time and in specific cases. Javadi-Hesar ascribed this development to the conservatives' loss of confidence in the MOIS. A commentary in the 12 August "Yas-i No" said the Guardians Council is being transformed into an intelligence organization, and is becoming a government that acts against the official government.
President Khatami said in a 22 August speech to MOIS executives that their organization must have the dominant role in intelligence activities, "Iran" reported on 23 August. He added that the establishment of any parallel intelligence organizations is unconstitutional and harmful to the state. An unattributed article about Khatami's speech in the 23 August "Toseh" warned that parallel intelligence organizations counteract and duplicate each other's efforts, and make oversight impossible. The article noted that the MOIS was created in the late 1980s to centralize intelligence activities in the country and to eliminate duplication.
Regardless of the executive branch's efforts, it must contend with the existence of many official security and intelligence institutions that operate autonomously. Writing in the 28 August issue of Beirut's "Daily Star," commentator Nawaf Obaid referred to the "newly created Foreign Intelligence Service" that reports directly to the Supreme Leader's Office. The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, different branches of the military, and the police all have their own intelligence and counterintelligence units. The Iranian executive branch will find it difficult, if not impossible, to reign them in and to centralize intelligence activities. (Bill Samii)
source:RFE/RL Iran Report Vol. 6, No. 37, 15 September 2003