18 November 1999. Pursuant to rule 108, paragraph 9, of the Committee's rules of procedure, the State party was requested not to expel the author to the Islamic Republic of Iran pending the consideration of his case by the Committee. In a submission dated 21 December 1999 the State party informed the Committee that the author would not be expelled to his country of origin while his communication was under consideration by the Committee. The facts as submitted by the author 2.1 According to the author, he has never been politically active in the Islamic Republic of Iran. He was a respected Muslim of firm conviction who studied agronomics at Tehran University and who was financially well off from his own poultry farming business. In December 1988, having left university after a few years of study, the author was drafted and was eventually, at his own request, placed with the Sepah-Pasdaran in Tehran. 2.2 The author explains that in the early 1990s the Pasdaran (Iranian Revolutionary Guards) and the police were joined together, coming under the Ministry of the Interior. At the same time, a new security force body, the Sepah-Pasdaran, was created directly under the Supreme Commander, Ayatollah Khamenei, with the task to "protect the system, defend the values of Islam and the revolution". There are also counter-intelligence units within the Sepah-Pasdaran with responsibility for internal control and surveillance of the rest of the Sepah-Pasdaran. The author was placed in the Tehran office of one of these units, where he soon gained everyone's confidence and was appointed personal secretary to the commander of the office. As such he had access to all files and all cupboards, except one to which only the commander had the keys. 2.3 One day, the commander accidentally left his keys in the office when he left for a meeting. Out of curiosity, the author opened the "special cupboard" and found personal files containing information about immoral and criminal acts committed by well-known, highly respected individuals considered, not least by the author, as pillars of society. In his submission to the Committee, the author gives detailed information, including names of the individuals concerned and the nature of the crimes supposedly committed, including rape, illegal trade in arms, drug dealing and embezzlement. 2.4 The author took copies of the files and hid them in his home. He thought that if the allegations were forwarded to the right quarters, the individuals in question would be investigated, sentenced and punished properly. In February/March 1990, the author gave anonymous information to the Sepah-Pasdaran operational group, which resulted in a raid and the

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