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Al-Ahram Weekly 4 - 10 May 2000 Issue No. 480 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 4 - 10 May 2000 Issue No. 480
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Special Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Ballot blowing in the wind
By Azadeh MoaveniTwo months ago, when Iran held its most celebrated and closely watched parliamentary elections since the revolution, the country's reformists employed the hopeful language of "when." Now, with the second round of voting scheduled to end 5 May, the political climate has been convulsed and some are starting their sentences with "if."
Four days after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei decided that pro-reform journalism was "a grave danger to us all," 14 reformist newspapers and magazines were shut down last month by the hard-line judiciary. Two dailies escaped the first wave of the crackdown, largely because of the political costs of challenging their publishers: one, Saeed Hajjarian, publisher of the daily Sobh-e-Emrouz, lies in the hospital after an attempt on his life, while the other, Reza Khatami, publisher of the daily Mosherakat, is the brother of President Mohamed Khatami. The second wave of the crackdown, which saw both closed down two days later, left virtually no pro-reform daily on news-stands. Even apolitical people were taken aback: "I don't bother with the labels reformist or conservative," said one taxi driver in downtown Tehran. "But as an Iranian it's insulting to wake up and be without a newspaper."
Similarly dismayed, students in Tehran and around the country protested peacefully against the closures. A major student group, the Office to Consolidate Unity, firmly told students to stay in the classroom and avoid the streets at all costs, so as to avoid a repeat of last summer's student riots. The mood among students, though, suggested no such danger -- though disillusioned with Khatami, most university students, at least in Tehran, seemed neither angry nor organised enough to stage violent demonstrations. Former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a political force in the conservative camp, led the week's Friday prayer, predictably speaking in support of the crackdown.
The blows to one of the most visible gains of President Khatami's reform effort immediately raised concerns that a similar fate may await Iran's new reformist-controlled parliament, elected in February and due to convene later this month. With rumours of a possible coup by a "power mafia" within the hard-line Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force controlled by the supreme leader, circulating for weeks, the sudden closures of newspapers seemed to both ordinary Iranians and reform leaders like a prelude to cancelling the election results. Without a liberal press to make a fuss, the Council of Guardians, responsible for supervising elections, has annulled 11 reformist electoral victories to date and can now continue to manipulate the election results -- particularly the sensitive Tehran vote -- with impunity.
All eyes are now on the second round of the elections. If the reformists secure two-thirds of the seats, the margin needed to control the new parliament, the president's supporters worry that hard-liners will devise some quasi-legal measures to either invalidate the results or render them indeterminate.
Reformists are under siege from all directions. Several of their leaders were interrogated this week for their participation in a conference held in Berlin in late April on the results of the first round of the Iranian elections. Publisher Shahla Lahiji, student leader Ali Afshari and feminist lawyer Mehrangiz Kar have been imprisoned pending trial, while publisher Hamidreza Jaleipour has been released on bail. Journalist Akbar Ganji, imprisoned last week for his investigative work, faces the same charges. Reformists are highly concerned about his safety while in custody. On 30 April Ganji was reportedly transferred to the quarantine ward of Evin prison, where close associates say both his failing health and personal safety may be jeopardised. While being handcuffed, Ganji joked that he would not ingest any strange medicines, referring to the mysterious circumstances authorities cited in the prison death of Saeed Emami, the lead suspect in a series of political killings -- allegedly involving establishment hard-liners -- about which Ganji has single-handedly exposed considerable information during the last year.
Who, exactly, has it in for the reformists? Rumours are circulating that Supreme Leader of the Iranian Revolution Ali Khamenei may have authorised the attack, but reformist speculation does not stop at his door. Many liberals believe that a figure in the right wing of the hard-liners, guided by Rafsanjani, has instigated the chain of political crises that began with the attack on Saeed Hajjarian in early March and that continued into this week.
Meeting with key reformists at the end of the week, Khamenei appeared careful to stay above the fray and in spite of his heavy hand with the press he championed Khatami. But reformists said privately that the meeting ended in discord and stalemate.
With crackdowns on freedom and rampant speculation about Iran's political future, tension in Tehran mounts by the day. Whether Khatami finally takes a firm stand against the hard-line backlash is as pressing a question as whether the second round of elections will proceed more regularly than the first. Meanwhile, frustration and disappointment grow among the president's supporters.
