Wages of Sin

New executions and purges

Their heads covered with ceremonial hoods, the four condemned prisoners were buried chest-deep in the earth just outside the town of Kerman in southern Iran. After the presiding Islamic judge had cast the first stone, five other people began pelting the hooded figures with rocks, some as large as oranges. The prisoners--two men accused of assorted sex crimes and two female prostitutes--took 15 minutes to die under the barbaric barrage. It was the first time in centuries that execution by stoning, a traditional Islamic punishment for certain sexual offenses, had been carried out in Iran.

The grim executions took place following renewed calls by Khomeini for a strict adherence to Islam and a purge of all forms of corruption. The 80-year-old Ayatullah had launched the campaign two weeks ago with an impassioned speech apologizing for the "incompetence" of his regime, which he said had "done nothing for the people." He particularly criticized certain officials in the government of President Abolhassan Banisadr. At the same time he demanded that "all traces of the former regime be obliterated."

Thus, even as the deposed Shah clung stubbornly to life in Cairo's Maadi Military Hospital following abdominal surgery, the mullahs waged war on his ghost in Iran. Thousands of photographs of the ousted monarch were burned in mass bonfires, the Pahlavi crest was hastily scissored from government stationery, and workmen hammered stone bas-reliefs of the imperial crown from the fac,ades of public buildings. Hundreds of civil servants and teachers who were accused of having ties with the former regime were purged from government offices and universities.

In other outbursts of moral fervor, Khomeini decreed that all women must now cover themselves with "proper Islamic dress," and the Center for the Campaign Against Sin banned the sale of records and tapes of "vulgar music" from the West. The popularity of all these measures seems questionable: at week's end only some 300,000 responded to official calls for a pro-Khomeini demonstration in Tehran. That was an embarrassingly low turnout, compared with the millions who regularly jammed the streets of the capital at the beginning of the Islamic revolution last year.

The regime also took steps against "foreign espionage"--and for once this did not refer to the 53 Americans held hostage since November. Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh announced the expulsion of a high-ranking Soviet diplomat accused of spying. He then ordered Moscow to reduce its diplomatic staff in Iran sharply and announced the closing of the Iranian consulate in Leningrad.

Banisadr, meanwhile, seems powerless to deal with the country's problems, mainly because of ruthless political opposition from fundamentalist mullahs led by Ayatullah Seyyed Mohammed Beheshti, president of the Supreme Court. Defending himself against his critics, Banisadr bitterly complained that he could "not fight on ten different fronts" and announced that he had given Khomeini a standing letter of resignation to act on whenever the Ayatullah sees fit. Says a senior government official: "Banisadr is trying in vain to convince Khomeini that he should allow him to govern. But Khomeini is suspicious of anyone who does not wear a turban."

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