Iranian Alert -- February 22, 2004 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD --Americans for Regime Change in Iran

The US media almost entirely ignores news regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran. As Tony Snow of the Fox News Network has put it, “this is probably the most under-reported news story of the year.” But most American’s are unaware that the Islamic Republic of Iran is NOT supported by the masses of Iranians today. Modern Iranians are among the most pro-American in the Middle East.

There is a popular revolt against the Iranian regime brewing in Iran today. Starting June 10th of this year, Iranians have begun taking to the streets to express their desire for a regime change. Most want to replace the regime with a secular democracy. Many even want the US to over throw their government.

The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movement in Iran from being reported. Unfortunately, the regime has successfully prohibited western news reporters from covering the demonstrations. The voices of discontent within Iran are sometime murdered, more often imprisoned. Still the people continue to take to the streets to demonstrate against the regime.

In support of this revolt, Iranians in America have been broadcasting news stories by satellite into Iran. This 21st century news link has greatly encouraged these protests. The regime has been attempting to jam the signals, and locate the satellite dishes. Still the people violate the law and listen to these broadcasts. Iranians also use the Internet and the regime attempts to block their access to news against the regime. In spite of this, many Iranians inside of Iran read these posts daily to keep informed of the events in their own country.

This daily thread contains nearly all of the English news reports on Iran. It is thorough. If you follow this thread you will witness, I believe, the transformation of a nation. This daily thread provides a central place where those interested in the events in Iran can find the best news and commentary. The news stories and commentary will from time to time include material from the regime itself. But if you read the post you will discover for yourself, the real story of what is occurring in Iran and its effects on the war on terror.

I am not of Iranian heritage. I am an American committed to supporting the efforts of those in Iran seeking to replace their government with a secular democracy. I am in contact with leaders of the Iranian community here in the United States and in Iran itself.

If you read the daily posts you will gain a better understanding of the US war on terrorism, the Middle East and why we need to support a change of regime in Iran. Feel free to ask your questions and post news stories you discover in the weeks to come.

If all goes well Iran will be free soon and I am convinced become a major ally in the war on terrorism. The regime will fall. Iran will be free. It is just a matter of time.

Iran's Elections Threaten Pact on Nuclear Inspections

February 22, 2004
Independent UK
Angus McDowall in Tehran

Hardliners in Iran could pursue a more aggressive nuclear policy and crack down on the country's reformists after taking control of parliament in an election boycotted by their opponents.

Pragmatic conservatives struck a deal with Britain, France and Germany last November to open Iran's nuclear facilities to inspection, hoping a softer international line could buy some respite on the scrutiny of domestic issues, such as human rights. But many hardliners were deeply unhappy with the deal, and Western diplomats believe they see the stifling of domestic opposition as an opportunity to pursue a weapons programme more rapidly.

The US, which was suspicious of the deal in the first place, had its concern reinforced by the discovery last week of advanced centrifugal equipment for enriching uranium to weapons grade. Iran had failed to declare the equipment, and has had its involvement in the international nuclear black market exposed by the downfall of Pakistan's nuclear "father", Abdul Qadeer Khan.

In a blow to the reformist cause, turnout in Friday's election to the Majlis was far below normal levels, but not as low as those advocating a boycott had hoped. Nor is the result decisive enough for conservatives to claim a strong popular mandate, but that is unlikely to stop the unelected religious establishment suppressing demands for change.

President Mohammad Khatami now faces a final year in office without the support of a reformist Majlis. When he cast his vote on Friday, for an election he had labelled unfair, the President wore a telling frown and was rumoured to have written down only a few names out of the 30 allowed for each voter.

With Friday's result a foregone conclusion after the disqualification of more than 2,300 reformist candidates, the election was all about turnout. Early results suggested participation of a little under 50 per cent, dropping to 30 per cent in Tehran. "Voting will not make any difference in people's lives, it is all just a game. The reformists just let people think things were improving, without making any real changes," said Khorram, a shopkeeper in Tehran.

Many going to the polls expressed cynicism about the process, and said they only wanted to get the mark in their identity cards showing they had voted. Reformists allege rumours were deliberately spread to suggest that people who failed to vote might have problems with bureaucracy. They say the level of spoiled ballots is likely to top 10 per cent, and that many votes were cast at random. That could lead to a second round of polling in some cities in a couple of months.

Although the conservatives are now in the ascendant, they are deeply divided over how to proceed, with pragmatists favouring a softer "bread and circuses" approach to rule and hardliners wanting revenge on their reformist enemies. Hojjatolislam Qavami, one of the disqualified MPs and chairman of the Majlis legal committee, told The Independent on Sunday the opponents of reform could become "Taliban-like and limit all legal freedom". Some reformists actually hope for a crackdown in the belief that this might rekindle public support for them.

So far hardliners seem to be setting the agenda. But now they will need to focus on improving the economy as a pivotal element of their strategy to retain power. Economic reform has been severely hindered by constant bickering between the Majlis and non-elected conservatives in recent years, and can now be pushed through more quickly.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=493884

Rigged Poll Puts Iran's Hardliners in Power

February 22, 2004
Telegraph UK
Damien McElroy in Teheran

In the streets, Iranians greeted the election result with indifference. Plagued by a moribund economy starved of foreign investment, Iran is failing to cope with a population explosion. Unemployment is high and incomes are stagnating. Imad Nemaatallahi, an engineering student, said: "The talking will stop, the newspapers will be closed down and we will either end up richer or there will be another revolution."

Islamic hardliners routed Iran's reformists yesterday as votes were counted in an election that had been rigged before the polls even opened, thanks to the mass ban on moderate candidates.

The new conservative majority is expected to spell an end to President Mohammad Khatami's seven-year experiment in greater freedom of speech and loosening Islamic cultural and social restrictions - a drive that hardliners have tried to obstruct at every turn.

Extended voting hours that stretched far beyond the Friday evening deadline yielded an unexpectedly strong turnout from an apathetic electorate. The interior ministry predicted that almost 50 per cent of voters cast a ballot, defying pre-election predictions that turnout could slump to 30 per cent. Nevertheless, it is still likely to be a record low.

Religious-backed parties were on course to win more than 200 of the 280 seats, dramatically reversing the reformist landslide of 2000. The outcome was widely forecast after more than 2,400 candidates, nearly all reformists, were vetoed by a clerical council, prompting a boycott by the main anti-conservative movements.

Hardline prosecutors last week also closed down two of the last surviving pro-reform newspapers, an office of the main reformist party and its news website - all for reporting a critical letter by the disbarred deputies.

The conservatives were jubilant that calls for a widespread boycott had been thwarted. The Siyasat Rouz newspaper proclaimed the result was a victory over foreign powers that supported the reformists: "Once again the Iranian people have defied the predictions of the foreigners."

The clerical Guardian Council, which vets candidates and validates the results, declared that by voting in large numbers Iranians had "foiled all the plots and plans of the enemies of religion and the nation, including the Great Satan, America".

The resurgent religious parties are dedicated to a cultural revolution that will restore the early zeal of the Islamic Republic on the overthrow of the Shah in 1979. They have been in power for a year in Teheran's city government and changes in the capital give a taste of what the rest of the nation may soon face. The new mayor, Mahmoud Ahmedi Nejad, has vowed to return the middle class to God and has appointed high-profile allies to impose his agenda across the city.

Mohammad Shajjadi, a director of films about Iranian heroics in the trenches during the war with Iraq, has been made manager of a drab community centre in the northern suburbs. "The middle class and the religious people have become divided," he said. "The opposition between these two classes must end; it is the policy of the municipal government that we must engineer this. Leisure time and free time are among the most important fronts."

In recent years, Iran has changed greatly as its youth - under-25s make up half the population - rebelled against Islamic strictures such as demands that women cover their hair and bodies to avoid inflaming male passions.

However, stricter segregation between the sexes is now on the way back. The director claims that far from stifling the people, such measures are attractive to local residents. "For the first time, our activities in different types of art are partitioned, even the guitar playing," Mr Shajjadi said. "This is so that all from this society can participate."

The mayor has even banned David Beckham's face from the city's advertising hoardings. The Real Madrid player was used to promote an engine lubricant in Iran until the mayor decided his posters were a distraction for the city's youth.

Mr Shajjadi defended the move: "They want paintings, the big posters, in different parts of the city to keep youngsters in touch with the traditional values and improve their behaviour."

Reformist politicians have been discredited by a failure to force through greater changes. Even existing reformist changes, Mr Shajjadi says, now must be reversed.

"For the first time in seven years, cultural officials in Teheran are interested in citizens' behaviour," he said. "If we try to educate people in the right way, they will become more co-operative citizens."

Iran's clerical rulers tapped a deep vein of nationalism and suspicion of foreign interference among many Iranians to boost the turnout and endorse the legitimacy of the Islamic system. But the lower turnout and reversal of results also reflected apathy and disillusionment with Khatami's reformers as much as calls for a boycott.

In the streets, Iranians greeted the election result with indifference. Plagued by a moribund economy starved of foreign investment, Iran is failing to cope with a population explosion. Unemployment is high and incomes are stagnating. Imad Nemaatallahi, an engineering student, said: "The talking will stop, the newspapers will be closed down and we will either end up richer or there will be another revolution."

Reformists accused the government of mounting a campaign of intimidation on television and in official workplaces to flush out voters. Opponents of the hardliners are dismayed. "The 1990s were our 1960s, but the underground revolution was stillborn just below the surface," said one female Iranian official. "Now the hardliners are coming back to shovel soil over us."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/02/22/wiran22.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/02/22/ixportal.html

Working as a Journalist in Iran is a Surreal Experience

February 21, 2004
stuarthughes.blogspot.com
Stuart Hughes

Videoblog: Iranian Election Analysis by Stuart Hughes
http://stuarthughes.blogspot.com/saturday%20analysis%20tehran%201.wmv

Listen to Stuart Hughes election day report
http://stuarthughes.blogspot.com/Election%20Day%20Pkg.wma

A staple of broadcast journalism is the “vox pop” – accosting people on the streets and asking them what they think about a particular subject.

On election day, many of the programmes I work for were asking for voxes so I went down to a nearby polling station with my translator, Negar, to listen to the vox of the populi.

Being able to interview people openly in public places is unusual enough in Iran. But the paranoia of the authorities over it would be laughable, were it not so serious for the ordinary Iranians who have to deal with the invasions of their privacy every day.

As soon as I took out my microphone and started talking to people, a plainclothes intelligence officer sidled up alongside. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t stop us, he didn’t take notes…he just stood there, as if poised to step in should anyone dare to criticise the regime. It was all extremely bizarre – but because we’d been rigorous beforehand in ensuring we had the right accreditation, everything was above board. On any normal, non-election day we’d have been hauled off to the nearest police station – or at the very worst subjected to the breathtakingly pointless questioning and permission checking that makes you want to tear your hair out. For the elections, though, we had our special papers – and no one could stop us.

As the day went on, the constant shadow of the authorities began to feel almost normal. Men in sunglasses followed us from a distance whenever we went. To be fair, I would have been very surprised if they hadn’t.

At one point, we turned up at a polling station to do some lives on our videophone, only to find it virtually deserted. As we set up the camera, the police officer on patrol herded up a gaggle of women in black chadors and made them queue outside – to make it look like the Great Iranian Public was itching to cast its collective vote.

At the polling station, I met two sisters who were a dream for me. Not only did they speak good English but they were also poles apart politically – one conservative, the other reformist.

I made them the centrepiece of my election day report, which you can hear here.
http://stuarthughes.blogspot.com/Election%20Day%20Pkg.wma

It's my analysis of the election results so far and is just over 400Kb in size: Videoblog: Iranian Election Analysis
http://stuarthughes.blogspot.com/saturday%20analysis%20tehran%201.wmv

The rollercoaster of news stories that have landed in my lap since I arrived here in the early hours of Wednesday morning has meant that it was only on election day that I was finally able to get out and about onto the pollution-choked streets of Tehran to “gauge the mood” – as journalists are fond of doing.

Until then, my picture of modern Iranian society had been a fragmentary one. For me, it was summed up by the behaviour of the bureau’s assistant, Negar.

She arrives at the office every morning dressed in long black coat and modest hejab. As soon as she’s indoors, though, she takes off her headscarf to uncover her hair. Beneath her coat, Negs wears western clothes.

It’s not every day that a foreign journalist with a microphone and a camera can walk up to an ordinary Iranian and ask them what they think about their country’s political system – and simply walk away afterwards.

On any normal day, gauging opinion on the streets of Tehran would instantly attract the attention of one of the many branches of Iran’s security forces – the Revolutionary Guard, the police, or undercover intelligence officers.

But election day for the seventh Iranian parliament, or majlis, was no ordinary day. More than 200 foreign journalists are reporting on the elections – and the authorities are eager to show their country in its best light.

At a polling station in the prosperous suburb of Niavaran, in northern Tehran, voters – and some who have simply turned up out of curiosity or to give moral support to relatives -- were eager to express their views, even if many are less willing to give their names or have their photographs taken.

Long lists of candidates hang are posted along the walls of the polling stations. But the names of many would-be candidates were absent. Prior to the election Iran’s hardline Council of Guardians, an unelected watchdog, banned around two and a half thousand reformist politicians from standing.

The reformists, already under pressure over their perceived failure to fulfil their promises to liberalise Iranian society, decided to boycott the poll.

Many voters followed suit, including translator Bahar Irani.

“The candidates standing only represent about 10% of the population,” she told me.

“If the candidates don’t represent the population then it’s not a real election.”

Bahar Irani had only turned up at the polling station to accompany her sister, Noushid Najafi.

Although blood relatives, the two share very different political views – one a reformist, the other deeply conservative, a fact highlighted by her flowing black chador covering her entire body.

“It’s not because I’ve been tortured or anything like that I’ve chosen to vote,” Noushid said.

“It’s my right to vote, I want to vote, and that’s why I’ve done it.”

For some Tehranis, though, the ideological divide between conservatives and reformists is a side issue.

“All politicians are as bad as each other,” said Zohreh Sadri.

“They only think of themselves and their own wallets – and that goes for those who vote for them as well.

“If the turnout is low it’ll show that the politicians aren’t representing the will of the people.

“The whole election is a sham.”

That’s a sentiment shared by Ali Sami’ee, a 22 year old student.

“We do have a parliament here but as long as there is an unelected body like the Council of Guardians then parliament will basically be powerless.

“Whether we like it or not, the regime will be the overall winner.”

As I left Ali Sami’ee and walked away from the Niavaran polling booth he was immediately approached by a plainclothes intelligence officer and questioned about our conversation.

Old habits die hard in Iran – even on election day.

(A version of this entry can be found here (BBC News)..)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3508825.stm

http://stuarthughes.blogspot.com/archives/2004_02_15_stuarthughes_archive.html#107737479351562632

Turning Point in Iran

Le Monde | Editorial
Friday 20 February 2004

Iranians are convened to an election in the form of a funeral this Friday, February 20. The regime is burying a democratic experiment which has not kept all its promises. For a little more than six years, a President and a Parliament elected as democratically as any in the world, have co-existed- badly- with the second part of the state apparatus. That part draws its legitimacy from the principle called "velayat-e faqih": it asserts the supremacy of the clergy over politics ever since the creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran twenty-five years ago.

The first side was regrouped around the distinguished President, Mohammad Khatami, and his reforming majority in the Majlis, the Parliament. The second, the conservatives' camp, was dominated by the personality of the Guide of the Revolution, Ali Khamenei, who controls the security and defense forces, the justice department, and certain key economic positions.

Those six years saw constant political combat between the two groups. The reformers have lost. They had secured only a certain liberalization of behavior in a country of 66 million people, over half of whom were born after the revolution. The conservatives have won the battle for power- through rigged trials, targeted assassination campaigns, the use of torture, and other repressive methods.

Friday's elections won't be democratic. The conservatives have prohibited most reform movement candidates from running. Just Thursday, they had the last two reform daily newspapers, Yas-e nou and Sharq, closed down. Everything suggests that by the end of this week, President Khatami, whose term is over in 2005, will find himself without a majority from now on. He will be the only democratically elected official in a theocracy. It's a turning point.

From a certain angle, this will clarify the situation. No more shadow theater, no more pretenses, no more "democratic" grape leaf to mask the true power, that of the mullahs. The conservatives won't be able to hide any more behind "civil" government. They'll be holding all the levers of control. They'll be responsible for everything: mass unemployment that hits a well-educated youth; the suffocation of the ambitions of a large country that, without denying its religious singularity, wants to achieve a mastered modernity that doesn't ape the West. They will be responsible for the often shameful situation of Iranian women, who represent more than half the population; for a nuclear policy that seems to retain too many gray areas to not worry Iran's neighbors, Europe, and the United States.

It is both to Mr. Khatami's credit and a sign of his weakness that he did not resort to a test of force- in the open, in the streets-with his opponents, as though he knew that Iranians, from the revolution to the long war against Iraqi aggression (1980-1988), were fed up with violence. However, the conservatives would be mistaken to wrongly interpret the apparent passivity of a young, disappointed, frustrated, and impatient population.

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Translation: Truthout French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher.

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© Copyright 2004 by TruthOut.org

http://truthout.org/docs_04/022204H.shtml

Sunday Herald - 22 February 2004

Hardliners tighten grip on Iran after election ends hopes of reform

Newspapers were closed, liberal candidates were banned … was there ever any doubt over Iran’s election? From Dan De Luce in Tehran

Iran’s experiment with reform officially ended last week after the theocratic leadership orchestrated a conservative takeover of the parliament. Reformists and dissidents are bracing themselves for hard times

In a country that mixes religion and politics in equal measure, it seemed fitting that mosques were converted into polling places in Iran’s elections on Friday.

Voting began early at the turquoise-tiled mosque on Resaalat Square, where women in black chadors and old men holding prayer beads scanned a list of more than 1000 candidates posted on the wall.

Hundreds of names were missing from the list, including those of many sitting MPs. They were disqualified by one of the theocracy’s most powerful bodies, the Guardian Council, which ruled that more than 2000 reformist candidates lacked loyalty to Islam and the constitution.

Holding her blue-and-white ballot paper, Zahra, 32, said she wasn’t bothered that the conservatives were running essentially unopposed. “These elections are free and fair. Those who are criticising are those who have betrayed the revolution,” she said.

Zahra said she had chosen the main conservative group, Builders of an Islamic Iran, because it stood for Islamic principles.

The theocratic leadership relies on Zahra and other members of a small but militant minority to support the system, attending state-organised rallies and turning out to vote in an orchestrated election. Some are true believers; some are state employees or businessmen who go along to get along.

The chasm between the hardline minority, who accept a rigid interpretation of Islam, and the rest of society plays out as a perpetual culture war.

A group of young men stood waiting for a bus only a few yards away from the mosque-turned-polling-place. When one of them spoke, it seemed as though he was light years away from the people arriving to vote.

“There’s no democracy here. This has all been planned in advance,” said Darius, 21, speaking quietly to avoid trouble with the police and security agents at the polling station. “I’ve never heard of any of these people who are running. If there were some candidates that I knew who would do something for us, I would vote.

“All of us hope this regime will fall. I would do anything to help change this regime,” he said.

Ignoring appeals to vote from the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Darius and his mates were escaping their noisy, working-class district for a day of walking in the mountains above Tehran.

Four years ago, young voters waited in long queues to cast their ballots for reformist candidates who promised democratic change . They believed the parliament would carry out the vision of President Mohammad Khatami, who proposed nudging the theocracy forward through what he called “religious democracy”.

His experiment was snuffed out at the outset. One of his senior advisers was shot and seriously wounded. A brief flourishing of press freedom was crushed as the hard-line judiciary shut down one paper after another. Once elected, reformists saw their initiatives vetoed by the Guardian Council, the same body that knocked them off the ballot for this election.

Khatami tried to steer a gradual course and settle for modest gains, but the conservative establishment merely exploited his conciliatory nature.

“He tried to play an intermediary role. But because of the polarisation that’s occurred between reformists and conservatives, there is no room to be an intermediary any more,” said one reformist, who asked not to be named.

“One should choose that way or this way. There is no third way.”

Reformist MPs have moved away from Khatami and are now openly accusing the supreme leader, whose wields near-absolute power, of authoritarian rule.

Looking weary on election day, Khatami offered characteristically oblique criticism of the religious establishment. “This nation has been defeated many times but continued its path and created surprises.”

The idea that democracy and theo cracy could coexist has been thoroughly discredited. Though the ref ormist experiment had effectively been defeated long before, the election was a kind of burial for Khatami’s project.

The elderly men who preside over the theocracy have made it clear there will be no democratic evolution on their watch. It is a sobering message for Iran and all those in the Middle East who had hoped Khatami might open a new era in the Islamic world.

The reformists who sparked lively debate in parliament will be replaced by obscure, obedient figures hand-picked by conservatives to serve as their proxies. In campaign literature they are presented as experts who will solve the everyday problems of Iranians.

“Employment is the most important thing and we’re going to tackle that in a serious way,” said Hassan Moqabessi, a spokesman for the Builders of Iran, which enjoys the patronage of powerful conservatives. “The reformists forgot about a lot of things. They forgot about the economy, about health care, about higher education.”

This is not the first time critical voices have been silenced in Iran. But the reformists were by no means outsiders. They had deep roots in the revolution, the clergy and the political families that have dominated Iran since the Shah was overthrown 25 years ago. Some are war veterans, others spent time in the Shah’s prisons. By crushing these insiders, the theocracy has alienated valuable partners who were prepared to work within the system.

Khatami’s cabinet will be next on the hit-list. Reformist MPs expect the new parliament, which doesn’t take power for another three months, to pile pressure on the interior ministry and the culture ministry – two areas where the conservatives accuse the reformists of being too lax.

Although it had little power, the outgoing parliament served as an outlet for criticism and discussion. Now that outlet has been cut off, pressures from different quarters will begin mounting.

Inflation and unemployment are threa tening to spiral out of control. The younger generation is chafing at restrictions on social freedom. With the reformists ousted, blame will fall solely on the conservatives’ shoulders.

On the international front, Iran is again facing tough questions about its nuclear programme. The UN’s nuclear watchdog has found that Iran had a more sophisticated uranium enrichment technology that it had admitted. The deal that the conservative leadership brokered with Britain, France and Germany last October may yet unravel.

As for the defeated reformists, they speak of carrying on their cause through grass-roots efforts and forging ties to secular liberals. But at a press conference yesterday after the election, the leaders of the main reformist party, the Participation Front, sounded adrift, still struggling to find a footing.

Leaving nothing to chance, the judiciary shut down the two most important reformist newspapers, Sharq and Yas-e No, two days before the vote. Both papers had published excerpts from a scathing letter from MPs accusing the supreme leader of trampling on the rights of the people.

Some reformists worry that the newspaper closures represent an ominous sign of things to come. They are bracing themselves for a bleak era ahead.

Copyright © 2004 smg sunday newspapers ltd. no.176088

http://www.sundayherald.com/40133

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3550587&thesection=news&thesubsection=world

Iran right sweeps to win in disputed election

22.02.2004
10.25am

TEHRAN - Islamic conservatives hostile to President Mohammad Khatami's liberal reforms swept toward a predictable victory over shackled reformists this morning (NZ time) after a disputed parliamentary election with a sharply reduced turnout.

Interior Ministry figures showed conservatives won 133 of the first 194 provincial seats declared, deputy parliament speaker Behzad Nabavi said. A total of 289 seats were at stake.

Reformists won 37, independents 17 and five were reserved for Iran's religious minorities -- Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians. In 31 districts where no candidate polled more than 25 per cent, there will be a run-off later.

There was not one woman among the first 194 lawmakers elected. There were 13 in the outgoing parliament.

Reformists branded the election rigged and many boycotted it after the unelected hardline Guardian Council banned 2,500 mainly reformist candidates, including 80 sitting lawmakers, prompting Washington to say the vote was neither free nor fair.

"Unfortunately, this was not a free election," said Mostafa Tajzadeh, a leader of the main reformist party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front, which boycotted the poll. "Our belief from the outset that the conservatives would win was proved right."

A conservative majority could spell an end to Khatami's seven-year experiment in allowing greater freedom of speech and loosening Islamic cultural and social restrictions, a drive that hard-liners have tried to obstruct at every turn.

DISPUTE OVER TURNOUT

State radio and television, keen to assert the reformist boycott had had no impact, announced a 60 per cent turnout.

But Vice-President Mohammad Ali Abtahi said the national turnout was about 50 per cent and in Tehran just 29 per cent, sharply down on the 67 per cent who voted nationwide in 2000, when Khatami's reformist allies won two thirds of the seats.

Reformist lawmaker Ali Shakurirad, banned from standing again, told a news conference the fact that half the nation had not voted and more than 70 per cent had stayed home in Tehran was a big defeat for the hardline clerics.

But apathy and disillusionment at the slow pace of Khatami's reforms may have had as much impact as boycott calls.

The lowest turnout for a parliamentary election since the 1979 Islamic Revolution was 53 per cent in 1980.

With a quarter of the votes in the 30-seat Tehran electoral district counted, conservatives of the Alliance for the Advancement of Islamic Iran held the top 20 places, the Iran Students News Agency said.

Conservative commentator Amir Mohebian, a policy adviser to Iran's senior clerical leaders, suggested the victors would use a velvet glove rather than an iron fist, and the new assembly would usher in a second phase of more effective reforms.

Abtahi said it was up to the conservatives now to keep their promises not to interfere with people's social freedom.

But political analyst Hossein Rassam forecast an escalation of factional conflict and a crackdown.

"The reformists are aware that the conservatives will try to make deals with the European Union and will try to prevent this by being outspoken about the state of democracy in Iran," he told Reuters. "This will antagonise the hard-liners and will lead to arrests, the closure of more newspapers and so on."

SATAN'S PLOTS FOILED

The Guardian Council said that by voting in large numbers Iranians had "foiled all the plots and plans of the enemies of religion and the nation, including the Great Satan, America."

Both the United States and the European Union voiced concern on Friday at the conduct of the poll, particularly the mass exclusion of reformist candidates.

"These actions do not represent free and fair elections and are not consistent with international norms," State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters.

But conservative ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was quick to say Iran had a better turnout than the United States, where a president who won only 25 per cent of the popular vote had entered the White House on the ruling of a court.

Under the constitution, the government does not have to resign after parliamentary elections. But the new assembly, which features many former deputies from the 1990s, may try to impeach Khatami's more liberal ministers, as it did in 1999.

Eight Die in Vote Result Disputes in South Iran

Sun February 22, 2004
Reuters

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Eight people have died in clashes with police in two towns in southern Iran over disputed parliamentary election results, local officials said on Sunday.
Four died in the town of Firouzabad in the southern Fars province, in protests on Saturday when the governor's office declared an unexpectedly high turnout in a tight race between a reformist and an Islamic conservative candidate.

"People were calling for the votes to be recounted to stop any possibility of vote-rigging," a local official, who declined to be named, told Reuters.

Another four were killed in the southwestern Khuzestan province when police clashed with a group of people protesting about election results in the town of Izeh, the ISNA students news agency reported, citing an unnamed local official.

The protesters had tried to storm the governor's office and attacked government and judiciary buildings in the town, the official said.

In Firouzabad, a crowd of several hundred people grew angry after one protester was shot and wounded by police.

The protesters began damaging police cars and attacking government buildings and in subsequent clashes "unfortunately three civilians and one policeman were killed on Saturday morning," the local official said.

Islamic conservatives were on course for a big win over reformist allies of President Mohammad Khatami on Sunday in an election branded unfair by Washington due to the prior disqualification of more than 2,000 reformist candidates.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=4409224

Low voter turnout in Iran

Maariv Int'l, Israel
22 Feb 2004

After disqualifying their liberal rivals extremists take control of parliament as nation votes with its feet in protest over rigged elections

The disqualified reformists can claim a moral victory in Iran’s rigged elections, as the voters heeded the reformists’ call to boycott what had become a farce.
The official government figures put voter turnout at 43.29 percent, a drop of 25% compared to the 67.2% turnout registered in the 2000 elections. Reformists say the turnout was even lower, about 40%.

An especially low turnout was registered in greater Teheran, a reformist stronghold. Estimates are the turnout in the capital was under 30%.

The conservative extremists will take control of the new Majlis, after 2,400 reform candidates were barred from running by the Council of Guardians, a non-elected body controlled by the conservatives.

Despite the boycott and lack of viable opposition, the conservatives are still 36 seats short of a majority, having so far won 110 seats.
With the ballot weighted with conservatives, coupled with the reformist boycott, Islamic hard-liners were likely to win from the start. Voter turnout was the real drama in Saturday's race.

Conservatives hoped people would ignore the boycott, showing the strength of the Islamic state 25 years after the revolution that ousted the secular, pro-Western shah. Reformists hoped low turnout would strengthen their drive for openness and accountability.

In the 2000 elections, hard-liners lost control of the parliament for the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But when the next legislature convenes in June, they should have a comfortable majority.

A victory for conservatives also consolidates hard-line control at a sensitive time in the Middle East. In Iraq, Shiite Muslims are pressing for early elections and look to predominantly Shiite Iran for backing. The United States and its allies, meanwhile, are questioning Iran's denials about seeking nuclear arms technology.

More than 46 million people ages 15 and over were eligible to vote. Voting was extended for four hours in an attempt to get every last ballot.

State television and radio broadcast a nonstop series of reports and appeals aimed at stirring voters. Senior Islamic clerics described voting as a religious duty.

http://www.maarivintl.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=3343

Iran Says It Bought Nuclear Parts from Dealers

February 22, 2004
Reuters
Parinoosh Arami

TEHRAN -- Iran acknowledged on Sunday that it bought nuclear components on a shady black market amid mounting concern that the Islamic Republic may still be concealing sensitive nuclear research.

Disclosures by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, have in recent weeks lifted the lid on the global trade in nuclear technology that could be used to make atomic bombs.

Khan has admitted to leaking nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Unlike the other two countries, Iran insists its nuclear program is entirely peaceful.

"We have bought some things from some dealers but we don't know what the source was or what country they came from," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.

"It happens that some of those (dealers) were from some sub-continent countries," Asefi added, stressing that Tehran had informed the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog -- the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) -- about the purchases.

Malaysian police said on Friday that Khan had sold Iran $3 million in centrifuge parts to Iran in the mid-1990s.

Western diplomats in Vienna say Iran has given the IAEA the names of five European middlemen and six Pakistani scientists who helped Tehran acquire nuclear technology.

Diplomats also say the IAEA has found parts usable in advanced "P2" centrifuges to produce enriched uranium in Iran.

Iran late last year admitted to an 18-year cover-up of sensitive nuclear research and signed up to snap inspections of its nuclear facilities.

STILL HIDING SOMETHING?

But the discovery of P2 centrifuge parts has increased concern in Washington and the European Union that Iran may still be hiding aspects of its nuclear program.

However, a senior Western diplomat in Tehran told Reuters on Sunday he did not expect further major revelations about Iran.

"I don't think there will be more nasty surprises on the nuclear file," he said.

He said Iran appeared to have taken a fundamental decision, endorsed by all factions in the ruling establishment, that developing nuclear weapons was not worth the trouble.

However, he said Iran wants to retain a capacity to enrich uranium to keep the know-how, while the West was united in seeking to persuade them to give up the program completely.

"We are still haggling, thinking of prices," the envoy said.

Asefi said Iran had told the IAEA about its P2 centrifuge project, which Tehran says is still at the research stage.

"Weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons have had no place in Iran's defense doctrine and will not have," Asefi said.

The IAEA is expected to release a report on its inspections in Iran in the coming week. Diplomats in Vienna have said it will detail Tehran's continued failure to declare potentially weapons-related atomic equipment to the U.N. agency.

(Additional reporting by Paul Taylor in Tehran, Louis Charbonneau in Vienna)

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=4409065

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