Barii-Sadr’s wife held

Press, 22 June 1981, Page 8

Barii-Sadr’s wife held

NZPA-Reuter Teheran President Abolhasan BaniSadr's wife has been arrested and is being held in Teheran’s Evin Prison, according to a Majlis (Parliament) deputy, Hadi Ghaffari. He said in resumed debate on Mr Bani-Sadr's competence to remain President yesterday that Mrs BaniSadrs and four other people were picked up by the authorities on Saturday. Mr Ghaffari, a hard-line member of the ruling Islamic Republican Party, said Mrs Bani-Sadr and others were in a. car distributing leaflets to demonstrators.

He said the leaflets quoted the president as calling on the people to rise against dictatorship saying: “I announce today the overthrow of. dictatorship.” Street battles erupted in Teheran on Saturday between supporters and foes of the president. At least 19 people were killed and more than 200 injured.

Mr Ghaffari said: “I asked Bani-Sadr’s wife: what she was doing. She said, ‘we have come to watch’.”

His announcement was greeted by shouts of "death to Bani-Sadr” and “Allah-o-akbar” (god is great) by the deputies, who are debating the president’s impeachment. Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali, the judge who sent hundreds of people to the firing squads after Iran’s revolution, called for the execution of 50 Leftist supporters of Mr BaniSadr. ‘

Referring to ..the’ Mu-jahedin-e-Khalq (People's Crusaders), an underground

guerrilla group backing the president, he said: "50 of them must be executed. We will show them that we are the men of war and will dig their graves in the streets.” He told the Majlis that it was not necessary to worry about the country’s borders. It was in Teheran that Leftists had dug trenches and killed several Revolutionary Guards.

Members of the Mujahedin fought with Revolutionary Guards and the pro-Muslim-clergy Hezbollahis (members of the Party of God} after they tried to set up street barricades.

The, 1 ' Majlis Speaker (Hashemi Rafsanjani) announced to the Assembly that in Saturday’s fighting 16 people had been martyred — a term applied only to faithful Muslims. He had; earlier said the Mujahedin were infidels,' a stdte which precludes martyrdom. The dead included an official of the Shahid (Martyrs) Foundation, which helps the families of people killed in the service of the revolution, and a librarian at a mosque. He, said a Majlis deputy’s bodyguard had been shot and was in a serious condition. ?

Hospitals contacted after nearly three hours of street fighting on Saturday said 19 people were killed and more than 200 wounded.

The Majlis Speaker said President Bani-Sadr, who has not appeared in public since his dismissal as Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief on June 10, had gone into hiding and was moving from one house to another.