Free Republic

While there is not much time left until June 18, the day of the presidential elections in Iran, the war between the two factions within the regime for winning this seat has escalated. On April 25, a letter signed by 220 members of the Iranian parliament was published in the media. The MPs asked Ebrahim Ra'isi, the head of the regime's judiciary, to run for the presidency. The letter was published contrary to the usual custom of non-interference of the legislature in the affairs of the executive branch. Ra'isi's endorsement is also interpreted as an attack against the current president,...

TEHRAN, Iran — More than 100 reformists, including the brother of former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami, were arrested Saturday night, leading reformist Mohammad Ali Abtahi told Reuters. "They were taken from their homes last night," former vice president Abtahi said.Authorities released the former president's brother, Mohammad Reza Khatami, on Sunday, his wife said. She said at least two other top leaders of Iran's largest reformist party, including the party's secretary-general, were also released early Sunday, but that others remained in custody. Additional arrests were expected. Iranian officials, however, disputed the claims and said the reformists were merely summoned and "warned...

FOR years, Massoud Dehnamaki was known widely as the feared enforcer of conservative rules that restricted freedom for women and society. In recent years, however, he has emerged as Iran's Michael Moore, having directed a documentary on the taboo issue of prostitution and another forthcoming film on soccer as a metaphor of political struggle. Reformists and conservatives alike harshly criticized Mr. Dehnamaki for making the first movie, "Poverty and Prostitution." Conservatives were furious that one of their own had not only highlighted an un-Islamic social pathology but seemed to sympathize with the prostitutes. Reformists believed he deliberately exaggerated the problem...

TEHERAN - Iran's reformist opposition criticized the nation's nuclear policies as it may bring Iran before the United Nations Security Council and lead to sanctions, ILNA news agency reported on Monday. The spokesman for the MJM faction, Rassoul Montajabnia, told ILNA that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government had made a political mistake by skipping the Europeans in favour of members of the Non-Aligned Movement. The new Iranian administration has decided to increase nuclear negotiations with the NAM member states as well as Russia and China and sever talks with the European Union trio Britain, France and Germany, the main negotiating partners...

Tehran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program that, if not halted immediately by the supporting of key reformists, will leave Israel with no choice but to carry out a pre-emptive strike against Iran, WND columnist and "Atomic Iran" author Jerome Corsi testified today before Israel's Knesset. "Israel might need to launch a pre-emptive attack against Iran, even if the international military and diplomatic reprisals that follow might bring immense pressure upon Israel itself," Corsi said in a keynote address to the Knesset's prestigious Forum on the Middle East. "Israel might well calculate that Iran armed with nuclear weapons would be...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Whether cowed by crackdowns, pacified by an increase in social freedoms or simply resigned, Iran's students are no longer the force that once spearheaded a revolution or agitated for liberal reform. With just over a week to go before a presidential election in which the Islamic state's clerical leaders have said it is a national and religious duty to vote, student leader Abdollah Momeni is calling -- quietly -- for a boycott. It appears the last resort of a group whose hopes for reform through the ballot box have all but vanished, at least for now. "Voting...

RIYADH (Reuters) - A Saudi court jailed three prominent reformists on Sunday for up to nine years for trying to sow dissent and challenge the royal family, dealing a blow to tentative reforms in the absolute monarchy. Judges at the Riyadh court, which was ringed by security forces, issued their verdict after a nine-month trial held mainly behind closed doors despite earlier promises of openness. The court sentenced academics Ali al-Dumaini to nine years in jail, Abdullah al-Hamed to seven years and Matruk al-Faleh to six years, lawyers said. All three were arrested in March 2004 after petitioning the kingdom's...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) In a rare open court hearing, three advocates of democratic reform appeared before a judge Monday on charges arising from their criticism of the kingdom's political and religious life. Saudi trials are normally held behind closed doors, but Monday's hearing was attended by about 200 people. The defendants Matrouk al-Faleh, Ali al-Dimeeni and Abdullah al-Hamed are charged with sowing dissent, creating political instability, printing political leaflets and using the media to incite people against the government, according to two political activists who attended. The activists, Abdul Rahman al-Lahem and Ibrahim al-Mugaiteeb, said the three asked the...

Amir Taheri: End of the Reformist Itch May Ironically Be Healthy for Iran 25-02-2004 Gulf News Whichever way one looks at Iran's latest general election the result is a decisive defeat for the so-called "reformist" camp. The product of an illusion, the so-called "reformist" movement had deceived itself into believing it could deceive all the people all the time. It all started with Mohammed Khatami's election as president in 1997. Iranians turned out en masse to vote for Khatami not because they liked, or even knew, him but because they wanted to prevent the election of the establishment's candidate whom...

Iran's Hard-Liners, Reformists Claim Wins Saturday February 21, 2004 11:16 PM By BRIAN MURPHY Associated Press Writer TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Islamic hard-liners and reformists both claimed victory in Iran's elections Saturday, with returns showing conservatives ahead in the race for parliament but a reformist boycott limiting voter turnout. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the winner of the election was the Iranian nation. He was upbeat about voter turnout, even though it marked a drop from previous elections. ``The loser of this election is the United States, Zionism and enemies of the Iranian nation,'' he told state media.A reformist...

Iran Media Barrage: Turnout Overwhelms 'traitors,' Shunning Disputed Elections By Brian Murphy Associated Press Writer TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - In a blitz of patriotic broadcasts and dissident messages, Islamic hard-liners and reformers dueled Friday during parliamentary elections that point to a conservative sweep but raise a bigger question: Did the reformist boycott succeed or crumble? What is revealed from the mountain of paper ballots - possibly Saturday - may determine the credibility of the reform movement and its drive to make the all-powerful Iranian theocracy more accountable to elected officials and the public. Reformers, outraged by the banning of more...

ISLAMIC IRAN PARTICIPATION FRONT OFFICE SEALED OFF TEHRAN, 19 Feb. (IPS) The office of the Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF), Iran’s largest political formation that controlled the outgoing Parliament was sealed on orders from the Judiciary, it was learned late Thursday night. The move, on the eve of the controversial elections, was expected, as the Judiciary, which is controlled by the leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i, had on Wednesday night shut down the party’s official organ Yas e No as well as the reformist daily Sharq. Mr. Ali Shakkoori-Raad, an outspoken reformist lawmaker barred by the leader-controlled...

ABANDONED BY KHATAMI, REFORMISTS HAVE LOST THE ELECTORAL BATTLE TEHRAN, 31 Jan. (IPS) The Iranian crisis over mass disqualification of reformist candidates, among them several leading reformist lawmakers deepened on Saturday with contrary statements attributed to the government and the President, saying that an amiable solution of the raw has reached a "dead end" and warning that elections in such situation "lacked legitimacy and legality". As the disqualified reformists announced their decision to resign, Iranian news agencies reported that obeying the Chief Executive, ministers and provincial governors decided to remain in office, forgetting earlier threats to resign and the office...

Faced with renewed domestic unrest and international alarm over their nuclear programme, Iran's clerical leadership have begun an urgent debate over whether to offer concessions or withdraw into siege mode, diplomats say.Most analysts agree that more than a week of student-led protests posed no real threat to the nearly 25-year-old Islamic republic, largely because of the efficiency of the security forces and lack of any organised opposition network.But the sporadic unrest has nevertheless served as a reminder that frustrations remain as high as ever among Iran's massive and burgeoning youth population.And while protestors had previously voiced most of their...

In 1979, Azar Nafisi returned to her native Iran after a seventeen-year absence. From the moment she stepped off the plane, she found herself in a place that was dark and unfamiliar. The cheerful and cosmopolitan Tehran airport that she remembered from her youth, with its terraced restaurant and stylishly dressed women, now seemed barren except for giant posters of the ayatollahs tagged with menacing slogans in black and red: "DEATH TO AMERICA! DOWN WITH IMPERIALISM & ZIONISM! AMERICA IS OUR NUMBER-ONE ENEMY!" As a customs official searched her bags, he picked up her books—most of them modern American novels—with...

TEHRAN, Oct 15 (AFP) - Iran's conservative judiciary has summoned two outspoken reformist members of parliament to answer a barrage of charges recently brought against them, press reports said Tuesday. Fatemeh Haghighatjou is accused of "spreading lies, insulting Islamic Republic officials and anti-regime propaganda", IRNA reported without giving further details. She has so far refused to appear before the court, sources close to her said. Earlier this month Haghighatjou called on MPs to hold a national referendum if a conservative constitutional watchdog, the Guardians Council, blocks proposed laws to end the hardliners' stranglehold on power. They "must directly refer to...

TEHRAN, Sept 23 (AFP) - The government of Iran's reformist President Mohammad Khatami is to submit a bill to Majlis Tuesday seeking to expand presidential powers limited by conservative-dominated institutions, IRNA reported Monday. Vice President for legal and parliamentary affairs Mohammad-Ali Abtahi will introduce the bill, IRNA said. The bill, details of which have yet to be released, has to be discussed in the relevant Majlis committee before being put to the vote, a procedure that may take several weeks considering parliament's busy agenda, unless it wins priority. It is about "more precise and concrete application of the constitution", Khatami...

Two leading Iranian reformists say they fear the country's ruling Islamic hardliners are preparing to declare a state of emergency to counter reformist moves to improve ties with the United States. Karim Argandepour, editor of the banned daily newspaper Norouz, is quoted by Iran's official IRNA news agency as saying that some extremists in the conservative camp are seeking to create an "exceptional situation." Mr. Argandepour and political ally Abbas Abdi say they base their fears on reports of a hardline letter in which some conservatives allegedly call for an emergency decree as a way of scuttling moves to improve...

Tension over U.S. stance: Reformers threaten to withdraw from coalition government Political tensions in Iran are reaching a turning point as hardline clerical conservatives unleash a new wave of repression, closing liberal newspapers, imprisoning leading dissidents and permanently banning the country's main opposition party. In a crackdown on reformers grouped around Mohammad Khatami, the President, conservative clerics are using their control of the judiciary and security forces to lash out at critics pushing for democratic reforms and a more secular state. On the weekend, Iran's feared Revolutionary Court dissolved the country's oldest opposition party, the Freedom Movement, sending 33 of...

Bush drops Iran reformists and backs dissidents By Toby Harnden in Washington (Filed: 24/07/2002) President George W Bush has abandoned attempts to woo reformist elements in the Iranian government and is now publicly backing dissidents determined to overthrow the regime. George W Bush The decision follows a fierce battle between Washington hardliners and Colin Powell, the secretary of state, who had argued that President Mohammad Khatami's reform programme should be encouraged. Mr Bush hopes that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme ruler, will be toppled by a democratic revolt, possibly inspired by the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq being planned...