E/CN.4/2000/16 page 35 151. However, reality shows that the attitude of the Iranian authorities towards the Iranian Jewish community is discriminatory: (a) Although no law actually says so, no Iranian belonging to the Jewish religion can be hired in a public service sector such as teaching, medicine or banking. (b) Jewish Iranians have to perform two years of military service, but cannot be promoted to the higher ranks in the army or have a military career. (c) Unlike Muslim citizens, a Jewish Iranian citizen has to undergo an in-depth interrogation and other tests as a sine qua non condition for obtaining a passport. (d) Iranian citizens belonging to the Jewish religion are the only minority allowed to leave Iran only through Mahrabat International Airport. This restriction is stated in their passports, and this means that the name of the airport alone is synonymous with the word “Jew”. (e) In addition to their family name, all Jewish Iranians have the name “Kalimi” stamped in their passport to identify them as Jews. These two measures are a way of getting around criticism by the international community of evidence of racial and religious discrimination. (f) Jewish Iranian citizens are strictly prohibited from visiting Israel. They have to sign a document in which they undertake never to go to Israel. Visits to Turkey and Cyprus are automatically suspected as possible visits to Israel. In the event of suspicion, the passports of the persons concerned are immediately confiscated or not renewed. (g) Persons accused of “spying” are usually sentenced to the death penalty, which is reduced in some cases and commuted to life imprisonment. (h) The telephones of a number of Jewish Iranian citizens are tapped. (i) Young Jewish citizens reaching the age of military service cannot leave Iran during the months preceding their call-up. (j) Jewish schools in Iran are under Muslim management and have consequently lost their Jewish character, as shown, inter alia, by the requirement that Jewish children must go to school on Saturdays (Sabbath). (k) The most flagrant demonstrations of anti-Semitism and religious discrimination in the Islamic Republic takes place when Jewish citizens are accused of maintaining contacts with their relatives in Israel. These Iranians are then accused of spying on behalf of an enemy country and sentenced to very lengthy periods of rigorous imprisonment and, in some cases, to death. 152. Some examples of these discriminatory practices include: (a) Parwiz Sasson Yachar, a 50-year-old Iranian Jew, emigrated to Israel with his wife and their four children in May 1990. After deciding to settle there for good in May 1993,