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Copyright © 1994-98, by the Middle East Data Project, Inc. All rights reserved.
The factional rivalry between supporters of President Khatami, who is seeking to liberalize Iran's system of clerical rule, and his radical opponents, erupted into street brawls on at least three occasions last month.
The street clashes occurred as jockeying within the regime intensified. Both Khatami and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamene'i cautiously embraced each other in public speeches over the past three weeks, suggesting that they were seeking to prevent an open rift that could lead to widespread violence.
Some 100 pro-Khatami demonstrators, who had cheered the President at a May 23 rally in Tehran to commemorate the first anniversary his election, were beaten by police after leaving Tehran University, the pro-Khatami daily Hamshahri reported, with many taken into police custody. Two days later, students calling for election reforms and greater political freedom were attacked by Hezbollahi thugs near the Tehran University campus. And on May 29, more violent clashes erupted between supporters and opponents of Khatami in the central Iranian city of Isfahan.
The most violent of the clashes occurred on May 25 in Tehran's Laleh Park, where some 2,000 students rallied under the banner of the Islamic Students Association and were set upon almost immediately by opponents armed with sticks, chains and stones.
The attackers, widely assumed to be members of the Ansar-e Hezbollah which owes allegiance to Ayatollah Khamene'i, wrecked sound equipment brought to the rally by the students and disrupted a speech by ISA President, Heshmatollah Tabarzadi. The Tehran students had obtained a permit to hold their pro-democracy demonstration from Interior Minister Abdallah Nouri, after earlier attempts to hold the rally without a permit were blocked.
Tabarzadi has been the victim of Hezbollahi thugs before, and attempted to deliver his speech over the din of the crowd. According to one account, one of the attackers shouted back at him: "We don't want freedom. Freedom will lead to a day when the chador will be dropped and the American will return to Iran."
The rally organizers were calling for non-clerics and women to be allowed to run in October elections for the Assembly of Experts, the 80-member elected body that selects the Supreme Leader. They were also seeking to end the power of the Council of Guardians to determine which candidates will appear on the ballot in local, parliamentary, and presidential elections.
Khatami challenge: The next day, Interior Minister Abdallah Nouri told an audience at Isfahan University that the Khatami cabinet intended to ask Parliament to change the legal powers of the Council of Guardians to screen election candidates.
The Guardians reduced the number of presidential candidates in last year's election from 238 to just four, and regularly disqualify prominent political figures from running for Parliament because of factional squabbles.
President Khatami was feted on the previous Saturday, to mark the first anniversary of his election as President on May 23 (2nd Khordad). In a speech to tens of thousands of followers at Tehran University, he praised the system of clerical rule (Velayat-e Faghih), while extolling the virtues of democratic tolerance. "When we speak of freedom," he said, "we mean the freedom of the opposition. It is not freedom if only the people who agree with those in power are free. The art of government is not to eliminate the opposition. The art of government is to induce even the opposition to behave within the framework of the law."
Until now, the Islamic Republic has harshly suppressed the opposition. In the early days of the Revolution, thousands of followers of the former Shah were rounded up and massacred, mainly by the Mujahedin-e Khalq (People's Mujahedin Organization of Iran) and by the revolutionary komitehs. Later, when the Mujahedin split with Khomeini in 1981, the regime turned against the Mujahedin, killing thousands of their followers. In more recent years, the blood-letting has slowed, but opposition clerics such as Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Shirazi remain under house arrest, and opposition political parties such as the Iran Nation's Party or the Iranian Freedom Party remain outlawed, if tolerated.
Under Khatami, this pattern of suppression has been slow to change. But small signs of a thaw are beginning to appear. A flurry of "liberal" newspapers has been authorized to appear in recent months. A pro-Khatami daily, Jameah ("Society"), grabbed headlines last month when it reported a controversial speech by Revolutionary Guards commander Maj. Gen. Yahya Rahim-Safavi, who called for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, as we reported last month. In just three months of publication, Jameah has ramped up daily circulation to over 200,000.
Jameah has paid a price for its popularity, becoming the butt of attacks of pro-regime radicals. The paper said its regional office in Rasht was attacked twice during the first week of May by about 30 Hezbollahi thugs, attempting to prevent its circulation. And in his speech to Revolutionary Guards officers, Maj. Gen. Yahya Rahim-Safavi singled out Jameah as the vanguard of the "liberal" press, and urged regime supporters to "cut out the tongues" of its opponents.
The increasingly critical Tehran press is also widely credited with having forced Ayatollah Khamene'i to release Tehran mayor Gholam Hossein Karbaschi, who had been jailed on corruption charges by Khamene'i crony, top judge Mohammad Yazdi. Public demonstrations were held in Karbaschi's favor, with demonstrators chanting slogans critical of Yazdi.
But despite the signs of a "Prague spring," there are equally disturbing signs that Khamene'i and his radical faction have not thrown in the towel, and intend to cut short any real reforms that could challenge their grip on power. Earlier in the month, Khamene'i sought to discourage followers of rival Ayatollah Ali Hossein Montazeri, who remains in house arrest in a suburb of Isfahan, from staging a demonstration in his favor. Law Enforcement agents broke into the home Montazeri's son Ahmad on May 9 and arrested some of his guests, after they objected to police filming the gathering. The demonstrators were demanding their release and the end of Montazeri's detention.
Instead, Khamene'i called on his supporters to stage a counter-demonstration after Friday prayers on May 15, when an estimated 30,000 regime supporters flooded the streets of Isfahan chanting anti-Montazeri slogans.
Isfahan clash: In the central Iranian city of Isfahan, opponents of the pro-Khatami prayer leader, Ayatollah Jalaleddin Taheri, clashed with his supporters during Friday prayers on May 30, according to Iranian press reports.
According to an account in the daily Farda, the anti-Taheri supporters were protesting the boisterous pro-Khatami rally held on May 23 in Tehran, during the mourning month of Muharram. A similar protest was held by conservative clerics in Qom.
Copyright © 1994-98, by the Middle East Data Project, Inc. All rights reserved.