Word: firstness
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Originally this was not so. First established by Khomeini as a five-member body in November 1978, the Council was supposed to be a "revolutionary parliament" to prepare for an orderly transfer of power from the Shah's regime to a new revolutionary government...
...From the first days of Bazargan's "civilian" rule last February, however, the Council acted more as a rival government, frequently countermanding government directives and intervening in day-to-day administration. The Council directs the revolutionary tribunals that have already put to death by firing squad more than 630 of the Shah's supporters and others. It also controls the Islamic militias and the Islamic Guard, a sort of praetorian security unit for the mullahs...
...Seyyed Mohammed Beheshti, 51, the "First Secretary" of the Council, is a tall mullah with a heavy beard, hawk nose and a magisterial manner when dealing with both colleagues and subordinates. Fluent in English and German (he served as a mullah to Iranian Muslims in Germany for five years during the 1960s), Beheshti is a skillful debater in public and a cunning manipulator behind the scenes...
...first acts was to purge the Iranian broadcast media of Western-style artists and music. "They all love to talk," one expert says of the Council members, and alliances within the group shift dramatically from issue to issue...
When the embassy was seized in Tehran, the Carter Administration looked for some means of retaliating and finally, as a first step, ordered the deportation of Iranian students who are in the U.S. illegally. As one Justice Department official said at the time, "It's the only bullets-or BBs-we had." Yet even this restrained action may fall short of any target. A lack of accurate data on the students, growing resistance from civil libertarian groups and a variety of court challenges are likely to slow down deportation. So far, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has questioned...