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Al-Ahram Weekly 28 Oct. - 3 Nov. 1999 Issue No. 453 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 28 Oct. - 3 Nov. 1999 Issue No. 453
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Profile Study Special Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Twice unlucky
By Azadeh MoaveniEven the unluckiest politician can expect a precipitous fall only once in his or her career. Pity, then, Abdullah Nouri. Driven from his post as minister of the interior in Iranian President Mohamed Khatami's government, the pro-reform cleric replied by gaining a massively favourable vote in February's City Council elections and by starting Khordad, the most prominent liberal newspaper still extant in Iran. Ironically, it is as a result of these successes that he has fallen once again, this time being charged with serious offences, most of which relate to the perceived ideological challenge he represents to the absolute authority of the country's conservative clergy.
Nouri went on trial on 27 October before the hardline Supreme Clerical Court on a number of serious counts, which, in a 44-page indictment, included insulting the late Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini, publishing material contrary to Islam, advocating ties with the United States and supporting Ayatollah Montazeri, a dissident cleric deemed threatening enough for him to be kept under house arrest.
A close ally of President Khatami and, after him, the most prominent reformist figure in the country, Nouri was expected to head a slate of liberal candidates in next February's parliamentary elections. The poll is expected to be as significant as any in the Islamic republic's history, at least since Khatami's own 23 May election this year. Khatami's supporters are expected to do well, bolstering the president's limited executive powers with legislative muscle. And, had the elections proceeded as expected, Nouri would have had every reason to expect to be elected speaker of the new parliament.
However it is precisely this that the new charges have put in doubt. Should the case drag on, or should there be a conviction, Nouri could be disqualified from running and his newspaper shut down. Khordad has until now escaped conservative efforts to silence the reformist press and is expected strongly to support the reformers' cause in the forthcoming elections, as well as monitoring events leading up to the 18 February elections for the Iranian upper house, the majlis. In thus moving against Nouri, the clerical court's motives seem clear: to check the reformers' electoral gains while discouraging desertion from the clergy to the reformist camp. Should this strategy succeed, the new parliament would continue to serve as the hardliners' check on President Khatami's reformist agenda.
But Nouri's trial also highlights other hotly contested issues in Iran, even if these are not so pressing as the parliamentary elections, for it also focuses on the legitimacy of unquestionable religious authority as the basis of government in the country. Nouri, for example, told a student crowd in Teheran on 18 October that if the "people of Iran want to introduce Islam and Islamic revolution to the outside world properly and positively, they should encourage thought and freedom," comments which definitely seem to challenge the authority of the religious hardliners. In other material published in Khordad, Nouri explored the clergy's strict Islamic interpretation of notions like absolute truth, as well as the relationship between religion and truth, intellectual and political forays that are premised on an Islamic pluralism that is anathema to the clerical hardliners.
At the same 18 October meeting in Teheran, Nouri told the crowds that the clerical court set to try him was an "illegal body". His comparisons of the present government's policies with those of the previous regime's authoritarianism under the late Reza Shah further angered his enemies, who had previously jailed the liberal cleric Mohsen Kadvar for making the same allegation. Before a crowd in the Iranian city of Qom, Nouri also said that hardliner vigilantes were leftovers from the Savak, the Shah's notoriously brutal security service.
Since the publication of the charges against him, a coalition of reformist groups has sprung to Nouri's defence, accusing the Clerical Court and its prosecutor Mohamed Ibrahim Nekoonaam of conducting a form of "inquisition." The court, which is independent of the country's regular judicial system, is however widely expected to find Nouri guilty.
Perhaps most irksome to the hardliners, however, has been Nouri's support for a rapprochement with the US. Though following a policy of cautious dialogue with the US is high on President Khatami's own agenda, according to observers there are powerful interests in the country that oppose starting this process. That they are willing to bring down ministers and crack down on the press suggests how far they are willing to go to prevent it.
Rightly regarding the forthcoming elections as crucial to maintaining their position, the religious hardliners have attempted to shape the process in such a way as to improve their chances of retaining control. The current election law, for example, skews the distribution of seats in the 270-seat parliament in favour of conservative candidates and against those supporting reform.
However the reformist press has continued to support Nouri, pro-reform newspaper Aftab-e-Emrouz saying that "this controversial court is intent on convicting Nouri, having interrogated him seven times in the last nine months."
President Khatami for his part needs to ensure that the confidence of his supporters in the elections is justified, something which may be possible since, as Sadegh Zibakalom, professor of political science at Teheran University, points out, the conservatives' attempts to control the elections may not in the event seriously hamper reformist candidates, given their sheer numbers. In fact, he said, the election results may well strengthen Khatami's hand, commenting that "I'm sure the next election will be one of the most interesting, free, and sensitive after the revolution."
Nouri's ousting in 1998 from his position as minister of the interior was considered at the time as a serious blow to the Khatami government, an event that makes the outcome of the present case against him all the more important. While it is difficult to predict the outcome of conservative attempts to stem reform in the country, such uncertainty is significant. For the first time in two decades, Iranian politics has shed its aura of inevitability.
