Students in Iran sound boycott call
Tehran, Feb. 8 (Reuters)
Several hundred pro-reform Iranian students today called for a boycott of the February 20 parliamentary elections, reflecting mounting tension in the country gripped by its worst political crisis for years.
The Guardian Council, an unelected conservative watchdog body, has barred more than 2000 candidates from the poll, mainly reformist allies of President Mohammad Khatami, including some 80 MPs from the 290-seat parliament. Reformists yesterday abandoned an attempt to have the election postponed over the issue.
Baton-wielding police blocked a crowd of about 400 students, often the vanguard of reformist protest in Iran, from leaving Tehran University campus. The protest ended without violence. “Boycotting the parliamentary election is the way ahead for Iranians,” students chanted from behind the university gates.
The Guardian Council, composed of clerics and Islamic lawyers, last month rejected almost half of 8,200 aspiring candidates, saying they were not loyal to the values of the Islamic Republic.
But Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last word on all state matters in Iran, ordered a review of the bans and just under 1,400 candidates were cleared on appeal.
The students called on Khatami to resign and for a referendum to overhaul the constitution that gives hardliners such massive vetting powers.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1040209/asp/foreign/story_2876598.asp