The Presidential elections scheduled to take place on May 23 have been called the "first real competition since 1980" by many Iranians inside Iran, as challenger Mohammad Khatami has become a serious rival to front-runner Nateq-Nouri.
One Iranian who recently traveled to Europe from Iran expressed a commonly-held view when asked who he thought would win the elections. "If they count the votes, Khatami will win; if they don't, then Nateq-Nouri will."
Khatami, who was ousted as Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance in 1992 because of his liberal views, has been campaigning on a platform of greater openness and civil liberties, while Nateq-Nouri has proclaimed himself a friend of the bazaar and promised less government meddling in the economy. However, U.S. government Iran experts do not expect that Khatami would be able to bring about significant changes in Iran's foreign policy or support for terrorism if elected, since he will remain subordinate to the Supreme Leader and now to Rafsanjani as well, who will assume control of the Supreme Expediency Council. [Iran Brief 5/5]
For all the apparent competitiveness of these elections, they are not "free and fair" by any standard. The Council of Guardians, a body appointed by the leadership, maintains strict control over who may be a candidate and has in the past barred any real opposition figures from taking part. The state-controlled media is heavily tipping the balance in favor of the "approved" candidate, Nateq-Nouri, making it difficult for others to get their message across. If that weren't enough, the security apparatus is using intimidation tactics to deter free speech and criticism of the regime. Whether Khatami or Nateq-Nouri win, both are members of the current leadership; the only real difference between them is one of style. While this is significant for Iranians hoping for greater cultural freedom in their every day life, real change will require the dismantling of the Islamic Republic's repressive apparatus and its foreign terrorist networks, true political openness, fair access to the media, and a return to the rule of law.
In short, FDI believes that the Islamic Republic has a long way to go before it can boast of holding anything other than sham elections.
The Interior Ministry announced on April 29 that it had received 238 requests for candidature, including 9 women. The Council of Guardians must approve candidates as being "loyal" to the Islamic Republic, and will announce the final list of candidates on May 7.
Interior Minister Ali Besharati made it clear, however, that women would not be allowed to run, on the pretext they were barred under the Islamic Republic constitution.
This is sure to frustrate Ms. Azam Taleghani, daughter of the late Ayatollah Mohammad Taleghani and a well-known political activist, who on April 15 became the first woman in Iran's history to announce her intention to run for the highest elected office in the land.
Ms. Taleghani heads the Society of Islamic Women, and is editor in chief of a magazine called Payam-e Hajar. The evening of her announcement, the BBC's Persian service asked Ms. Taleghani whether she felt her candidacy would be approved. "Article 110 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran does not say that only men can be candidates for President," she said. "I am waiting to see what will be the reaction of the Council of Guardians." [BBC Persian service 4/15]
Ms. Talegani's brave statement was no match for Besharati, who made it clear that the Constitution exists solely to serve the leadership.
On April 28, three candidates who are members of the Freedom Movement or close to it - Dr. Ebrahim Yazdi, a former Foreign Minister, Mr. Ali Akbar Moeinfar, a former Oil Minister, and Ezatollah Sahabi - issued a joint statement in Tehran complaining of harassment by the authorities. They also accused the government of denying them fair access to the media. In a campaign speech in Mashad that was disrupted by pro-Nateq-Nouri demonstrators, Sahabi told supporters: "It is clear the authorities want to stage their own version of the election." [Iran Brief 5/5]
Another presidential candidate, Heshmatollah Tabarzadi, criticized current social and economic policies during a speech in Mahabad. "There is no freedom of speech in Iran, because anyone who dares to criticize has to face the consequences," he said. "Had we allowed the free formation of all political parties, and if we had freedom of expression in our society, perhaps we would not have had to cope with high inflation and economic losses. [Iran News, April 20]
A high-ranking Turkish general has accused the Islamic Republic of supporting Islamic fundamentalist groups in Turkey and providing logistical support to Turkish Kurdish separatists.
"There are currently 500 to 600 PKK militants in Iranian territory," said General Kenan Deniz, who is in charge of the army's internal security operations. He accused Tehran of "using terrorism for its political ends." He made these statements during a briefing on security issues. Another top military official, speaking at the same briefing, said that Turkey should be prepared to use force against countries backing the PKK rebels. [AFP, 4/29]
Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati hailed the EU decision not impose economic sanctions on Iran as a "great defeat" for the United States, but added that the Islamic Republic would reciprocate the freeze on ministerial contacts and visa restrictions imposed by the EU on April 29. The foreign ministry also announced that it would "refrain from engaging in any discussion over human rights, terrorism, and conventional, nuclear and chemical weapons" with the Europeans from now on.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i thought the critical Germans and Danes should be singled out for special treatment, and instructed Velayati in a statement published the same day as the EU decision to bar the two countries from returning their ambassadors to Tehran. [AFP, 4/30].
Meanwhile, the International Rushdie Defense Committee (IRDC) accused the European Union of taking the "weakest" possible measures against Iran. "Their action is not so much a slap on the wrist, it's more a nod and a wink to Iran. It sends the clear message that Iran can get away with murder in Europe." [AFP 4/29]
Austria has now launched an official investigation into the July 13, 1989 murder of Iranian Kurdish leader Abdulrahman Qassemlou and two colleagues.
Following a statement by FDI Executive Director Kenneth Timmerman on Austrian radio on April 11, charging a cover-up by the Austrian government, the opposition Liberal Forum demanded that a special parliamentary committee to investigate the 1989 killings [AP 4/13]. Now two former senior officials, Foreign Minister Alois Mock and Erich Maximilian Schmid, who was in charge of the Foreign Ministry's political section at the time of the killings, have come forward and admitted that the authorities dropped their investigation of the case because of intimidation by the government of the Islamic Republic.
Austrian Chancellor Viktor Klima announced that he was appointing special prosecutor to investigate the government's handling of the case in 1989, "to determine whether there are new clues to the crime and its clarification." [Vienna Der Standard 4/22]
According to former Foreign Minister Alois Mock, both he and Thomas Klestil, who was his secretary general of the Foreign Ministry and is now Austria's president, were briefed on threats by Iran's ambassador to Vienna of terrorist retaliation in the event the Austrian authorities prosecuted the Iranian officials they had arrested shortly after Qassemlou's murder. [Kurier, 4/22]
Meanwhile, former Iranian President Abol-Hasan Banisadr was invited by the Austrian Greens to give a news conference in Vienna on the topic of Austrian collusion with Iranian intelligence.
Banisadr said that it was no coincidence that the Iranian regime picked Austria. He claimed that the Islamic Republic threatened the Austrian government that it would make public documents on kickbacks involved in a huge weapons deal by state-owned Noricum to Iran. (The blackmail apparently worked, and the documents never surfaced). Banisadr emphasized that Iranian Foreign Minister Velayati was one of the officials responsible for pressuring the Austrian government. [Vienna Oesterreich Eins Radio Network, 4/18]]
A delegation from the Lebanese Hezbollah headed by its secretary general Hassan Nasrallah is on a visit to Iran, officials said. Nasrallah is holding talks with Iranian officials on the situation in his country. His delegation will take part in a seminar organized by the foreign ministry on "the massacre in Qana camp," a reference to Israel's bombardment of a UN camp in Lebanon in April 1996.
Nasrallah's visit comes after a trip to Lebanon by Iranian deputy foreign minister, Morteza Sarmadi, in late March, when he held talks with Lebanese government officials as well as Shiite Moslem leaders. [AFP, 4/27]
The view that the Tariq al-Qods maneuvers by Iranian Armed Forces are a threat to regional countries is pure American-Zionist propaganda, says Supreme Leader Ali Khamene'i.
Speaking in Bandar Abbas, on Wednesday, he said the military exercises being staged by Iran were neither a threat to Persian Gulf states nor to any other neighboring country whose intentions were not transgressional in nature. [Iran News, April 27]
That's not what other leaders were saying, however.
State-run Kayhan International said the maneuvers were aimed squarely at the U.S. naval presence in the Persian Gulf and at deterring U.S. military reprisals against the Islamic Republic in the event the U.S. determines that Tehran had a hand in the Dhahran bombing. "The present circumstances required Iran to send a message to Washington that any military adventurism against Iran may have unpredictable repercussions," the paper stated in an editorial. [4/27]
The day before, IRGC commander Maj. Gen. Mohsen Rezai, told Tehran television the war games showed that Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz, where 20 percent of the worldıs oil supplies transit every day.
"We can keep the Strait of Hormuz open ... But if we want to, we shall close this strait to anyone who is an obstacle to security in the region and keep it open for our friends and the Muslims," Rezai said. He also said that the broad scope of the maneuvers demonstrated that the Islamic Republic "can both fight America in the south and, at the same time, if anyone wanted to take advantage of this American attack on our western borders, we are also able to be present there and foil that move as well." [IRIB 4/26]
Recent criticism of "dual containment" by two former US National Security Advisers, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, has been well-received by the Islamic Republic.
State-run media have given prominent play to an article written by the two in tandem with former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy that appeared in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, the magazine of the Council on Foreign Relations. In the article, they claimed that U.S. sanctions have had little impact on Iran but have succeeded in making America's European allies angry.
In a commentary by the Voice of the Islamic Republic the two former presidential aides were praised for their wisdom. "Today, therefore, American political experts speak of a reality which has been proved with the passage of time. The interesting point is that this group of analysts invite Washington to revise its policies concerning Iran, but at the same time believe that the United States should provide the opportunity for Iran to introduce a shift in its attitudes and policies... There is no doubt that many political analysts and those who are well aware of Iran's economic and political reality might agree with the members of the Council on Foreign Relations; that is to say, the United States has failed in its political and economic moves against Iran." [Tehran Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 4/20]
The press supervisory board in its first meeting this Iranian year [21 March 1997] approved the publication of one new newspaper, four weeklies, and one quarterly. According to IRNA, Board spokesman 'Ali Akbar Ash'ri said the newcomers were the daily Farda, which has Ahmad Tavakoli as its proprietor and managing director; the Farhag-e Jihad quarterly, which has Seyed Farid Payman as its proprietor and managing director; Misaq, which has Mohammad Hosayn Farhangi as its proprietor and managing director and which will be published in the northwestern regions of the country; Chavan, which has Mohammad Hosayn Torkman as its proprietor and managing director and which will be published in the Kermanshah Province; and Nasim, which has Ebrahim Bahmani Jalali as its proprietor and managing director and which will be published in the Gilan Province.
As'ri said that at the meeting the election of Javad Qasemi as the new managing director of Homa, and a change of name from Abrar-e Banuvan to Abrar-e Haftegi was also approved. [Akhbar 4/15]
Majlis Speaker Akbar Nateq-Nouri has finally gotten the message: the real target of the "cultural onslaught" by world arrogance (the United States) and the Zionist entity (Israel) is the Islamic Revolution itself. He told a gathering at the Construction Jihad that Western propaganda aimed at "drying out the roots of the Islamic Revolution."
"So far, our focus of attention has been the manifestations of cultural onslaught, such as improper dress code, while the true nature of this attack is much deeper and wider," he said.
Nateq-Nouri said the Islamic Republic's enemies had always exploited "courtiers and impostor clergymen" to attack religion and the clerical community. "Separation of politics from religion is among those issues which have been delicately misused by our enemies, although the prompt presence of clerics has defeated these activities," he said.
Nateq-Nouri said the clerical community, the Majlis and the government were the most important advocates of Velayat-e Faqih and they would stand firmly against the country's enemies. [Iran News, 4/20]
Governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) Mohsen Nurbakhsh said on Monday that the private sector will be allowed to set up banks at free trade and industrial zones... as long as they team up with the public sector.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of a branch of the Export Promotion Bank of Iran at the Qeshm free trade and industrial zone, Nurbakhsh said the government has decided to authorize banks to operate in free trade zones. According to a plan passed by the Expediency Council, foreign banks will also be allowed to open branches at the free trade zones, and that domestic banks can perform foreign operations from the zones. [IRNA, 4/21]
Dutch anti-riot police attacked refugees at the Zwole holding center on April 16, who had been on a hunger strike to protest conditions at the camp.
Two Africans, one Kurd of unknown nationality, and an Iranian were arrested. [NAVID organization statement 4/17]
Meanwhile, five Iranian refugees apparently trying to flee to Greece from Turkey in a small boat were found washed up on the shore of the Greek island of Samos on April 28. According to the Athens press, their boat had capsized and the five had drowned.
Seventy Iranian refugees have been living in tents outside the Pakistani cities of Qowete, Islamabad and Rawlapindi for the past three years, because they fear assassination by agents of the Islamic regime in Tehran if they move into the Pakistani cities. 44 of the refugees are women and children.
So far, the United Nations has done little to help the refugees, Nimrooz reported from London. The weekly added that one of the refugees was killed recently by agents of the Islamic Republic in a Rawlapindi suburb and another, identified only as Molaei, was assassinated by a hit team sent by Tehran. Molaei had been in prison before leaving Iran. [Nimrooz 4/25]
Newspaper Salam ran a long editorial, questioning the wisdom of Majlis Speaker Nateq-Nouri's recent interview with the BBC's Persian Service. (Salam has been openly supporting Khatami in the presidential elections).
"We have many reasons to believe that America, Israel, and major European countries, particularly old colonialist country of Britain, are busy broadcasting programs against the interests of the sacred system of the Islamic Republic and are serving their own interests, and that is why they spend huge sums each year on their Persian-language media. No doubt one of the main pillars of our enemies' cultural onslaught is the sound and pictures they transmit to our receivers in attempt to increase their listeners and pursue their goals against the Islamic Republic," Salam said in its commentary.
Islamic Republic officials had been barred from giving interviews to foreign Persian-language radios in the early 1980's. The newspaper goes on to say that during the past two or three years sensitivities towards this issue have somewhat reduced. According to Salam "a number of newspapers have also reported that a BBC correspondent was given permission to work in Iran."
The newspaper wonders "what audience do they intend to address by giving interviews to the BBC Persian section? Do they not think that the Iranian media can adequately convey their messages? Is that why they agree to be interviewed by the BBC? Do the people whom they want to address -- that is, basically the revolutionary people and followers of the line of the imam [Khomeini] and the leader [Khamene'i] -- accept their messages through the radio of an old colonialist such as Britain? The more puzzling issue is that, because of their post and responsibilities, those officials have all of the country's media at their disposal, but still they seek to convey their message to Iranian citizens through the BBC!" No response from Nateq-Nouri so far on the subject. [Salam, 4/8]
Supreme Leader Ali Khamene'i has warned the government that its economic policies have helped create a small, wealthy class of Iranians at the expense of the masses.
In relaying Khamene'i's remarks, the Tehran Times recalled that a similar division between rich and poor led to the downfall of the Shah. "During the last years of the Shah's rule, the petrodollars that poured into Iran's coffers went mainly to the members of the ruling family and their close associates. As a result, a small well-to-do upper class was formed which monopolized the country's wealth and power while this policy alienated the masses from the ruling class."
The newspaper warned that "alienation of the masses from the government is more dangerous than any outside enemy, for once the masses are alienated the enemies can easily deal their blow. " [Tehran Times, 4/27]
Tehran authorities have banned renowned Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami from presenting his latest film, "The Delicious Taste of Cherries," at the 1997 Cannes festival next month, he said late Wednesday, April 23.
Speaking on Radio France Internationale, Kiarostami said the decision was notified to him by a deputy culture minister responsible for cinema. The official told him that the movie should have been shown first at the annual Tehran festival which is held in February to mark the victory of the Islamic revolution in Iran.
Cannes festival head Gilles Jacob said Tuesday he had received no information on Kiarostami's film, but added: "We are still keeping a place for him." Kiarostami's previous movie was shown at Cannes last year. [AFP, April 27]
Deputy Commerce Minister Mohammad Nabi-Habibi, quoted by IRNA, said Iran plans to import around five million tons of wheat in 1997, a dramatic increase over last year because of drought in many regions of the country. He said Iran had already bought and taken delivery of 2.5 million tons of grain from Canada and Australia. [IRNA, April 27]
Iran produces around 11 tons of wheat each year, which is not enough for its domestic consumption of around 15 million tons. A shortage of rain in many regions of Iran last winter has seriously affected the wheat harvest. The authorities announced in January the formation of a "crisis cell" to deal with the water shortage in Tehran, which has a population of 13 million. [AFP, April 27]