Congressional Challenger Touts Iranian Heritage
May 15, 2004
The Associated Press
Brad Cain
SALEM, Ore. -- A TV campaign ad opens with a photo of Goli Ameri as a young girl in Iran, then switches to images of the 1979 Iranian revolution.
Ameri "learned about evil in ways most politicians never will — Goli watched radicals in Iran persecute her family and destroy a nation," an announcer intones.
Ameri is one of three Republicans seeking the right in Tuesday's primary to run against three-term Democratic incumbent Rep. David Wu.
Her main GOP rival, Tim Phillips, has been responding to Ameri's TV ads by appealing to Oregonians' distaste for wasteful government spending and touting his support for President Bush's tax cuts.
Ameri's use of her Iranian heritage has boosted her name familiarity in the race in the 1st Congressional district.
"It's a good ad in that it introduces her to voters as an American success story," said Portland pollster Tim Hibbitts.
Phillips, however, contends voters are more interested in education and getting Oregon's economy going again than his rival's Iranian background.
"Nowhere does the ad mention cutting wasteful spending or promoting education reform. That's what's important to Oregon," said Phillips, who owns a Portland brokerage firm.
Phillips, 37, also takes issue with Ameri accepting a majority of her campaign money from out-of-state donors, most of them Iranian-Americans.
Ameri, 47, so far has raised about $1 million, including $550,000 from Iranian-Americans from throughout the country, according to her campaign.
"They want to support me because they think I have a good head on my shoulders and they know I understand tyranny and how to fight it," said Ameri, who runs a high-tech consulting business.
Ameri left Iran for the United States as a college freshman in 1974, became a U.S. citizen and has lived in this country ever since.
Her parents were living in France during the 1979 Iranian revolution that toppled the shah. The Islamic fundamentalists who took power confiscated her parents' property and threw one of her uncles in jail.
Phillips has also been running a strong race. He has raised $700,000, and his economic message could well resonate with voters.
The third Republican in the race is software executive Jason Meshell, who has lagged far behind the other two in fund-raising and who has run no TV ads.
Whoever wins Tuesday's election will face a tough battle with the Taiwan-born Wu. Like Ameri, Wu has collected a lot of out-of-state money, much of it from Chinese-Americans. Wu, who is uncontested in the Tuesday's Democratic primary, already has $1.3 million in campaign cash on hand.
There is also a lively GOP race in Oregon's 5th Congressional District. Two Republicans are in a battle to run against four-term Democratic Rep. Darlene Hooley. State Sen. Jackie Winters of Salem and Lake Oswego lawyer Jim Zupancic have been sparring mainly over Winters' support for an $800 million tax hike in last year's Legislature. Voters rejected the tax hike this past February.
So far, political observers are giving the edge to Hooley, regardless of which GOP candidate wins on Tuesday.
http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-6/108464964526310.xml
Aghajari's death sentence saga continues in Iran
Persian Journal
May 16th, 2004
Iranian reformist academic Hashem Aghajari, whose death sentence for blasphemy in 2002 led to mass protests, is unlikely to be executed although a provincial court has upheld the sentence, his lawyer said on Saturday.
"The death sentence will definitely be quashed by the Supreme Court, if legal principles are taken into account," Aghajari's lawyer Saleh Nikbakht told Reuters.
Iranian newspapers on Saturday reported Zekrollah Ahmadi, judiciary chief in the western province of Hamadan where the sentence was reviewed, as saying Aghajari's case had been sent to the Supreme Court although no appeal had been lodged.
http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_2326.shtml