washingtonpost.com
Reformists Take Debate to Iranian Press
By Jefferson Morley
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Thursday, January 15, 2004; 1:20 AM
The struggle for Iran's future is being fought in the nation's press, as well as parliament. As reformist leaders continue their sit-down strike in the national assembly to protest massive disqualification of their candidates by conservative clerics, the bitterly divided Iranian press is openly debating the issue.
Despite the closure of more than 200 newspapers in recent years, the reformists are making their case in leading news outlets--and increasingly in Web logs that are largely beyond the reach of government censors.
The conflict began on Jan. 10, when the conservative Guardian Council rejected more than 3,000 of 8,000 self-nominated candidates for the Majlis, the Iranian parliament. Among those barred from running in next month elections are 80 incumbent members of the parliament, virtually all of them reformists associated with President Mohammad Khatami.
Khatami, popular but ineffectual in a government dominated by clerics, has called for reinstatement of the candidates and for an end to the sit-down strike. The protesters, skeptical of Khatami's ability to win concessions, refused. On Wednesday, Iran's supreme religious leader sided with Khatami and ordered hardliners to reconsider the disqualifications, a victory of sorts for the reformists.
"This momentous event will more or less determine the fate of the country," declared columnist Soheil Mohajer in a front page editorial Wednesday in the Iran Daily, an English-language publication that has sided with the hardliners in the past.
Not now.
The dispute was unexpected, Mohajer wrote, because Khatami had supposedly received assurances that the Guardians Council "would not be too strict with the screening procedure" for candidates in February 20 vote.
"The conservatives have broken their pledge," says Mohajer. "The reformers, who are currently viewed as outsiders, always worked for the success of the Islamic system and never compromised over the system's ideals. "
Iran Daily also carried a summary of another editorial from a Farsi-language paper not known for reformism, Hamshahri. The Tehran daily was quoted as saying that the disqualification of parliamentary aspirants is "unfavorable and unacceptable." But the paper also called on the spurned candidates not to "stir up unwanted controversies or create a chaotic political atmosphere" and "to exercise self-restraint and remain calm."
The conservative and sensationalist Tehran Times said the controversy vindicated Iranian democracy from foreign criticism by showing "that there is an avenue for people to express their views and criticism and to protest, which in turn is part of the criteria for political growth and dynamism in Iranian society."
Try telling that to Sina Motallebi, a film critic and journalist jailed for 23 days last spring after posting pro-reform articles on his Farsi Weblog Rooznegar.com.
Now other reformists are following Motallebi's example. As Mark Glaser reported last week in the Online Journalism Review, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, the country's vice president for parliamentary legal affairs, relies on a Farsi and English-language blog to express his views.
And these journalistic innovators have support from the top. Glaser reported that President Khatami recently bragged at a United Nations summit that "of the Weblogs that are created and generated -- after those in English and French -- we [Iranians] are No. 3."
Under siege, Iran's reform journalists have found a new outlet. But the political situation is far from resolution.
In Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Gazette reported that editorials in hardline newspapers on Tuesday "signaled that the conservative camp was digging in its heels in its attempt to wrest control over the Majlis - and therefore the government -- held for the past four years by reformers."
One Tehran daily, Jomhouri e Islami (in Farsi), "lashed out at those who over the past four years have only had ears for the United States and Britain and who have acted against the regime. Four more years of treason cannot be accepted."
The Iranian paper said the reformists' "smear campaign and a propaganda assault against the Guardian Council is tantamount to opposing the law; and obviously the architects of such ploys and the perpetrators of that conspiracy shall be recognized by the public opinion as opponents of 'rule of law,' and therefore they will be the ones that shall suffer the most loss."
Another conservative paper, Siassat-Rouz, "even called for incumbent MPs who were disqualified to be thrown out of the Majlis immediately” according to The Saudi Gazette. The current Majlis mandate ends in June, the paper reports.
The position of the U.S. government is a sensitive issue.
But the IRIB Web site of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting service, while not openly editorializing, highlighted Khatami's statement that members of parliament "who could, and still can, help elevate Islam, the country and the nation have been treated wrongly."
The site also quotes a foreign ministry spokesman as saying that a U.S. statement urging reinstatement of the candidates constituted "interference" in Iranian affairs.
"The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran will do its utmost to defend the rights of nominees," the spokesman said.
Another English-language daily, Iran News noted that "the ramifications of this standoff are not just domestic."
Like neighboring Iraq, Iran is a Shiite-dominated country struggling to make a transition to democracy. With three times as many people as Iraq and much more pro-Western sentiment, the geopolitical stakes are not small, the pro-reform paper noted.
"The ruling establishment should also take into account that the world has changed enormously since Sept. 11 and the concept of 'national sovereignty' has been blurred and does not have the same meaning as it once did. Therefore, the officials in charge of the Islamic Republic must be cognizant of the watchful eye of the world community. They cannot simply do as they please without contemplating the international repercussions."
"By committing the system to democratic practices such as free and fair elections, an open press, etc., the Islamic system can effectively prevent interference by Western countries into our affairs and also block efforts by our adversaries to use this issue as an excuse for further tightening the screws on Iran."
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