‘$500M paid to Iran Anglicans

Press, 26 August 1980, Page 8

‘$500M paid to Iran Anglicans

NZPA-Reuter Teheran Iranian Revolutionary Guards arrested several foreigners and seized documents, equipment arid explosives at an Anglican Church. office, which they said served as headquarters of a United States financed spy network, Teheran radio reported yesterday; , ’ The broadcast said the material was found in the Bishopric in the central city of Isfahan and included classified Iranian military documents and papers "which indicate the payment of SUS 500 million to the Bishopric.” “At present several members of this network who are foreign nationals have been arrested along with their Iranian collaborators,” the radio said. It did not identify, the foreigners either by name or nationality. The former bishop. ,of,,the Anglican Church, .in..-Iran (the Rt. Rev' Hassan DehqaniTafti), recently said from his self-imposed exile in* London, that some of the 800 Anglicans remaining in Iran had been murdered and others had been harassed and arrested as part of a systematic scheme .by Islamic fundamentalists to “discredit Christianity.” Pope John Paul 11, along with other world religious leaders, has expressed concern about. the safety and rights of religious minorities under the regime of Ayatollah Khomeiny.

A Roman Catholic bishop) recently expelled from Irai.i told, the Irish; “Sunday imf dependent” newspaper in Dublin that most of the 40,000 Catholics in Irani three years ago had fled or been expelled since the revolution ousted the monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in January 1979. He said that only about 3000 Catholics remained in; Iran; It was reported yesterday j that the. late Shah’s son; Crown Prince Reza, planned, to set-up a government-in-ex-' ile to challenge the rule of Ayatollah Khomeiny; ;I; Quoting “devout support-? ers” of the late Shah’s family, ,the “Daily Express” gossip columnist William Hickey ; said a huge ceremony was being planned —Egypt being): the likely venue —- to pro-.i pounce Reza as the new Shah' on his twenty-first birtK-? day later this year. ri According to Hickey’s; sources, Crown Prince Reza' will then call for internatio-f nal recognition as the legal Iranian Government and will; work towards returning to Iran as soon as possible. The Shah died on July 27. in a military hospital in Cairo, after a long illness and a series of operations. His family was given permanent sanctuary in March by President Anwar Sadat after the Shah’ had taken temporary refuge in’ several countries, indue”; ing Mexico and Panama. *<