Iranian Alert -- January 31, 2004 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD --Americans for Regime Change in Iran

The US media almost entirely ignores news regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran. As Tony Snow of the Fox News Network has put it, “this is probably the most under-reported news story of the year.” But most American’s are unaware that the Islamic Republic of Iran is NOT supported by the masses of Iranians today. Modern Iranians are among the most pro-American in the Middle East.

There is a popular revolt against the Iranian regime brewing in Iran today. Starting June 10th of this year, Iranians have begun taking to the streets to express their desire for a regime change. Most want to replace the regime with a secular democracy. Many even want the US to over throw their government.

The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movement in Iran from being reported. Unfortunately, the regime has successfully prohibited western news reporters from covering the demonstrations. The voices of discontent within Iran are sometime murdered, more often imprisoned. Still the people continue to take to the streets to demonstrate against the regime.

In support of this revolt, Iranians in America have been broadcasting news stories by satellite into Iran. This 21st century news link has greatly encouraged these protests. The regime has been attempting to jam the signals, and locate the satellite dishes. Still the people violate the law and listen to these broadcasts. Iranians also use the Internet and the regime attempts to block their access to news against the regime. In spite of this, many Iranians inside of Iran read these posts daily to keep informed of the events in their own country.

This daily thread contains nearly all of the English news reports on Iran. It is thorough. If you follow this thread you will witness, I believe, the transformation of a nation. This daily thread provides a central place where those interested in the events in Iran can find the best news and commentary. The news stories and commentary will from time to time include material from the regime itself. But if you read the post you will discover for yourself, the real story of what is occurring in Iran and its effects on the war on terror.

I am not of Iranian heritage. I am an American committed to supporting the efforts of those in Iran seeking to replace their government with a secular democracy. I am in contact with leaders of the Iranian community here in the United States and in Iran itself.

If you read the daily posts you will gain a better understanding of the US war on terrorism, the Middle East and why we need to support a change of regime in Iran. Feel free to ask your questions and post news stories you discover in the weeks to come.

If all goes well Iran will be free soon and I am convinced become a major ally in the war on terrorism. The regime will fall. Iran will be free. It is just a matter of time.

U.S. Congressional Staffers to Visit Iran

January 30, 2004
The Associated Press
Barry Schweid

WASHINGTON - Congressional staff members will visit Iran next month in a bid to improve relations, Sen. Arlen Specter said Friday.

In an Associated Press interview, the Pennsylvania Republican said he hoped the visit, arranged in a meeting with Iran's ambassador to the United Nations on Wednesday, would lead to trips to Tehran by members of Congress and then by Bush administration officials.

"They are showing some signs of wanting to improve relations," Specter said by telephone from his Philadelphia office. "Now is a good time."

The senator, who will send an assistant as part of the group, said he had consulted with a senior Bush administration official before taking up the subject with Ambassador Mohammed Javad Zarif at a dinner in the U.S. Capitol. No senators or House members will go with the delegation.

The State Department cleared the ambassador to travel to Washington. Normally, travel of U.N. ambassadors of countries with which the United States does not have relations is limited to a 25-mile radius of New York.

A group of House members, including Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, who has joined Specter in seeking improved relations with Iran, attended the dinner, as well.

Ney, in an interview, said he thought a visit by congressional staffers was a good idea and he supported it.

But, he said on the telephone from Philadelphia on his way home to Ohio, "I don't think it is set in stone."

Ney, who taught English in Iran in the early 1970s, said, "There are signs of reform in Iran, but I stress we should not read into the signs more than is currently happening."

Apparently, the visit would be the first by congressional staffers to Iran since Iran's 1979 revolution in which the Shah of Iran was overthrown and the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was overrun by religious extremists. U.S. officials from the embassy were held hostage for 444 days.

Rep. Doug Bereuter, R-Neb., who attended the dinner, said he hoped "we would reach a point where it would be appropriate for members of the House and Senate to visit later this year."

Bereuter described the conversation with the Iranian ambassador as "a good discussion on how to build mutual confidence and understanding."

Asked about reports of a visit, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, "It would be fine with us if they decided to go."

Officials within the Bush administration appear to hold differing views about prospects for an accommodation with Iran, which President Bush two years ago denounced as part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and North Korea.

Some officials are convinced a strong reformist element exists in Iran, receptive especially to young people's desires for modernization. Other officials believe fundamentalist Muslim clerics remain in ultimate control in Tehran and consistently have vetoed liberalization.

Specter said he told Zarif that if Iran wanted better relations with the United States, it should withdraw its support from Hezbollah, the Lebanese group that has fought a cross-border war with Israel and is listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department.

Iran provides weapons to Hezbollah through Syria, which effectively controls Lebanon, according to department officials.

The ambassador retorted that Iran is a force for stability in southern Lebanon, Specter said, but "I disagreed."

Specter said Iran was enormously impressed by the Bush administration's use of force in Iraq and had shown signs of wanting better relations. He cited Iran's decision to submit its nuclear facilities to international inspection.

Also, Specter said, "They have helped us in the fight against al-Qaida and in the Afghanistan situation."

"I don't think we have given them sufficient credit. They deserve credit" for their support against the terror network headed by Osama bin-Laden, he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64217-2004Jan30.html

DoctorZin Note: Once again, I ask you to write your congressman and ask them to stop these initiatives with the mullahs of Iran. It disheartens the popular movement against the mullahs in Iran. It creates fear in the Iranian people that we will betray them for good relations with the mullahs. Remember, the mullahs are the very reason we are having problems in Iraq. They are the true terror masters.

Ask your congressman to stop this madness!

Click here to write your congressmen.

Sept 11 accused got training in Iran - defector

Reuters - World News
Jan 30, 2004

HAMBURG - A Moroccan accused of helping the September 11 suicide hijackers received training in encryption techniques at an al Qaeda camp in Iran in 1997, an Iranian defector said on Friday.

But his testimony to a German court was promptly undercut by comments from Germany's intelligence services, who questioned his credibility and said his evidence was worth very little.

Hamid Reza Zakeri, the cover name of a man who says he worked in Iranian intelligence and defected in 2001, was testifying towards the end of Germany's second major trial of suspected members of al Qaeda's Hamburg cell.

He told the court that the defendant, Abdelghani Mzoudi -- suspected of handling money for the September 11 plotters and covering up for them -- had spent three months in Iran learning to master codes and was an integral part of the conspiracy.

It was not immediately clear how the alleged training was linked to the plot.

Mzoudi, 31, had been expected to be cleared of aiding and abetting the murder of several thousand people and being a member of a terrorist organisation until the testimony from Zakeri surfaced last week.

The verdict is now expected next Thursday.

In evidence heard last week from police interviews, Zakeri had said Iran's secret service had contact with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network ahead of the September 11 attacks.

He also told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday that bin Laden's son had personally forewarned Iranian leaders of the planned attacks on U.S. cities, because al Qaeda wanted Tehran's help in sheltering its members afterwards.

'CIA PLOY'

Zakeri, a tall, bearded man with thick hair and glasses, told the court on Friday much of his information came from a high-ranking source in Iran with whom he remained in contact. He acknowledged he had neither met nor seen Mzoudi personally.

As recently as December, he said, al Qaeda military chief Saif al-Adel and Iranian officials met, concerned about Mzoudi's release from custody last month. They believed it was part of a CIA ploy to lead the U.S. agency to al Qaeda figures.

"They came to the conclusion that Mzoudi would have to be killed by a letter bomb sent from Duesseldorf or Vienna, or if he was deported, that he could then be seized," Zakeri said.

It was not clear that his sometimes rambling testimony had helped the prosecution case.

"It's difficult to follow you, Mr Zakeri," judge Klaus Ruehle said at one point during over three hours of questioning.

Ruehle later read out statements from Germany's intelligence services who had been asked to assess Zakeri's credibility.

"The worth of his evidence is very small. Much is unverifiable and speculative," the BND foreign intelligence agency said.

His trial is only the second anywhere of a September 11 suspect. His friend and fellow-Moroccan Mounir El Motassadeq was sentenced to 15 years by the same Hamburg court last February, but is awaiting a ruling on an appeal.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_3988.shtml

Viva la Reformers! -- The True Reformers!

In National Interest - By Reza Bulorchi and Nir Boms
Jan 30, 2004

Defying conventional wisdom, fresh voices of freedom appear to be coming from the Middle East as of late. Assad of Syria delivers his plans for democratization directly to the New York Times. Khaddafi of Libya delivers his to Newsweek, as he claims to be an ally in the war against terrorism and invites the world to review his nuclear arsenal. Khatami of Iran, the "moderate" President, threatens to resign due to an election crisis resulting from the Guardian Council's decision to disqualify more than 3,000 candidates from the ballot of his country's upcoming February 20 elections. Among the disqualified candidates were 80 incumbent Parliament deputies – including two deputy speakers. The banning of candidates, of course, is never a positive step. But the political crisis brewing in Iran must clearly show that voices of freedom are indeed making headway there – right?

Wrong. What you see is not always what you get when it comes to the Middle East, a region that has not yet began the process of democratic change. The cynical Syrian abuse of the crisis in Bam – the Syrians flew humanitarian aid into the earthquake – devastated city only to bring back weapons for terrorist groups-is just one example of new cosmetics hiding the same old faces. Nevertheless, knowing there are forces of reform in a country like Iran is welcome news in Washington, where there are many who would like to show that our policies in the Middle East are already producing results. There is only one problem: what Iranians have seen from Khatami and his faction over the past seven years has been nothing more than just the rhetoric of reform.

Iran's theocracy is based on a theory of government called the Velayat-e faqih, or absolute clerical rule. Velayat-e faqih is at the core of the complex structure of the Iranian political system in which immense religious and political authority rests with the vali-e faqih (or the Supreme Leader, currently Ali Khamenei). The interpretation of what is or is not an "Islamic principle" falls within the authority of the Supreme Leader and his hand-picked Guardian Council, the 12-member body tasked with vetting candidates for their "heart-felt" and "written" allegiance to the "Supreme Leader."

To be sure, there are factions within the Iranian political system, but the conflict is more of a power grab rather than a content debate over fundamental issues facing society, above all secular democracy. "I have principles for my path," said Khatami earlier last week to the Parliament deputies, "and the most important principle for me is to conserve the system." Indeed, the so-called reformist faction has lost no opportunity to conserve the doctrine of Velayat-e faqih.

In Iran, elections serve as a veneer to mask a rigid theocracy. The mullahs have perverted Western democracy and the parliamentary system to ensure that those institutions would not pose a threat to their grip on power. This hybrid of theocratic soul and democratic gloss has created a paper democracy in Iran, giving ammunition to Tehran's advocates in Washington and Europe to justify "engagement" and "dialogue" with its clerics.

Khatami's "reformists", by the way, have some interesting associations. Among them, one will find mullah Mohammed Mousavi-Khoeiniha, one of Khatami's deputies who was fully behind the US Embassy take-over in Tehran in 1979. Joining him was the recently deceased Ayatollah Sadiq Khalkhali, the notorious hanging judge; Ali Akbar Mohtashami, the terror master, who directed the Hezbollah in Lebanon in the 1980s and is believed to have coordinated the 1983 bombing of the US Marine barrack in Beirut; the US Embassy hostage-takers; the architects of the Ministry of Intelligence and former commanders of the Revolutionary Guards. These and others were baptized as "reformers" following Khatami's presidency

And this brings us to one of the biggest deceptions since Khatami's presidency in 1997: the promise of rule of law and civil society. In a system erected on the anti-democratic doctrine of Velayat-e faqih, this is a non-starter. This principle was incorporated into the constitution to make it, in essence, reform-proof. In fact, the biggest beneficiary of Khatami's mantra of "rule of law" has been the conservatives who consistently invoke it, casting aside the President's faction by applying the existing election and press laws. In Iran, rule of law means rule of Velayat-e faqih. In other words, Islamic sharia law. The establishment never gave Khatami's faction any real say in domestic policies. His smile, his citing of Montesquieu and Alexis de Tocqueville and his shallow discourses on lofty topics such as Islam, democracy and a dialogue between civilizations served as a diplomatic face-lift for Tehran.

The Iranian government is already besieged by domestic, social and political crises, as well as by international pressure for its sponsorship of terrorism and procurement of nuclear weapons. And despite the brave face they keep in public, Iran's leaders cannot escape the reality of what has happened in its neighboring countries to the east and the west.

The Guardian Council's move has made one thing abundantly clear: under the current political structure, a metamorphosis of the Islamic Republic from within by the likes of Khatami is an impossible task and a "reformed" Velayat-e faqih system is a contradiction in terms. Change - by way of genuine reform - can only come from inside the country but outside this regime.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has recently talked about Iran's "encouraging" moves and "new attitude." This is misplaced praise for a regime that still thrives on domestic terror and the export of fundamentalism. We need to see the clerical regime for what it really is: a theocracy, intrinsically and structurally incapable of reform. After a quarter of a century of acquiescence, the U.S. must help the Iranian people and opposition forces tear down the clerics' house of cards.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_4508.shtml

MAJORITY OF DISQUALIFIED LAWMAKERS BARRED FROM ELECTIONS

TEHRAN 30 Jan. (IPS)

As the Council of the Guardians announced the final results on the candidates it has approved for running for the seventh Majles under the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the most powerful man after the leader of the regime, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i declared conservative’s determination of not bargaining with the reformers.

According to a spokesman for the 12-members Council, 5.450 hopefuls out of a total of 7.900 candidates have been declared fit to run for the next Parliament, but disqualified reformist lawmakers said there are "very few" of them among the eligible candidates.

In a sermon to worshippers in Tehran during the traditional Friday prayers, Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani called on Iranian voters to come to the polls "massively, regardless of any origin or ideologies, to disarm the enemies of the Islamic Republic like the Americans and the Europeans as well as their local pawns, the counter-revolutionaries", referring to the reformers who opposes the massive disqualifications by the CG.

This is the first time that the former president who chairs the powerful Assembly for Discerning the Interests of the State (ADIS, or the Expediency Council) placed in the same basket the reformers who controls the present Majles, now reaching its last days, with the Monarchists and other groups opposed to the Islamic Republic.

"The people of Iran must be vigilant and fully aware that if they do not come out massively for the polls, our enemies who are watching the outcome carefully, would not leave us in peace", he told the worshippers bussed to Tehran University campus.

Almost all other Friday preachers, insisting that voting is both a "moral and religious" duty that must be obeyed by all voters, joined him.

Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani’s harsh words for the reformists signals the end of efforts deployed on both sides, but mostly by the embattled and powerless president Mohammad Khatami and the "chameleon" Speaker of the Majles, Hojjatoleslam Mehdi Karroobi at diffusing the crisis amiably, according to political analysts.

The new attacks on the reformists came as disqualified deputies continued their sit-in while Mr. Khatami’ Government seemed to be divided on the important subject of delaying or not the elections, as demanded by some of the lawmakers.

In fact, the Interior Minister, Hojjatoleslam Abdolvahed Mousavi-Lari and some of his colleagues are mending fences with the President over the proposal, made by some deputies to delay the date of the elections, officially sat for 20 February, if the CG insists on its decision to keep most of the reformist candidates out of the race, but Mr. Khatami has declared his opposition, stating that the elections must be held on time.

Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the Secretary of the CG warned the Interior Minister against the plan and Mr. Asadollah Badamchian, a member of the influential Party of Islamic Associations told him that if he is not able to organise "fair and free" elections, he is "free to leave".

In a statement carried by the independent Iranian Students News Agency ISNA, the protesting deputies said in a statement that they would only wait a few more hours "to keep their promise to the people" and boycott the elections.

But analysts said even if they did, nothing would be changed. "The elections would be held on time and the conservative candidates would occupy the majority of the Parliament’s 292 seats. The rest, the warning that a poor turn out would harm the legitimacy of the regime etc are plain nonsense", Dr Qasem Sho'leh Sa'di, a former deputy from Shiraz and a lawyer told Radio Farda, a 24 hours radio station controlled by the US government and based in Prague.

"Students, a powerful political force in a country two-thirds of people are under 30 years-old and the minimum voting age is 15, have kept out of the fray wary of again being drawn into street protests only to be left high and dry by top reformers", Mr. Ali Akbar Dareini, a staff writer of the American news agency The Associated Press said in a dispatch from Tehran, adding:.

"The public also has appeared largely unimpressed by the row, disenchanted by years of broken promises by reformers seemingly unable to bring about social and economic change".

ENDS IRAN DISQUALIFICATIONS 30104

http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2004/Jan_04/iran_disqialifications_30104.htm

Corrected News- Pilot

Iran parliament vote will lack legitimacy - minister

31 Jan 2004
Reuters

In TEHRAN story headlined "Iran parliament vote will lack legitimacy-Khatami" please read headline as "Iran parliament vote will lack legitimacy-minister" and in paragraph one ....Iran's interior minister said.... instead of ....Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said.... (making clear legitimacy comment was from interior minister).

Please insert as paragraph two ...."There is no possibility of holding free and competitive elections and we don't consider this election legitimate," the official IRNA news agency quoted Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi-Lari as telling reporters....

A corrected story follows.

TEHRAN, (Reuters) - Iran's interior minister said on Saturday next month's parliamentary election would lack legitimacy after the hardline Guardian Council confirmed bans preventing thousands of candidates from standing.

"There is no possibility of holding free and competitive elections and we don't consider this election legitimate," the official IRNA news agency quoted Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi-Lari as telling reporters.

IRNA quoted President Mohammad Khatami as adding: "We have reached a dead-end with the Guardian Council."

http://www.reuters.com/locales/newsArticle.jsp;:401b7ec5:7c3daf956e651d2?type=worldNews&locale=en_IN&storyID=4254199

Why Throw a Lifeline To a Sinking Regime?

January 31, 2004
Iran va Jahan
Shaheen Fatemi

The regime in Tehran has never been closer to total collapse. This morning's headlines read:

TEHRAN (Reuters) - President Mohammad Khatami said on Saturday Iran's parliamentary election would lack legitimacy after the hard-line Guardian Council confirmed bans on hundreds of reformists from standing in the Feb. 20 vote.
The government's own poll conducted by the Ministry of Interior reports that more than 85% of the people intend to boycott the forthcoming parliamentary election by NOT participating in this show.

Under such circumstance hearing and reading the following report from a US funded radio beamed to Iran is very hard to understand:

A group of US congressional staff members will visit Iran next month in an effort to improve relations with Iran, US Senator Arlen Specter said on Friday. "They are showing some signs of wanting to improve relations," Specter said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press, noting "now is a good time." Specter said he hoped the visit, arranged in a meeting with Iran's ambassador to the UN on Wednesday, would lead to trips to Tehran by members of US Congress and then by Bush administration officials.
How is this to be explained to the people of Iran who have been listening to the President of the United States and his message of hope for the future of democracy in the region? While people of Afghanistan and Iraq are inching their way toward freedom and true self-determination, why is the Taleban-like regime in Tehran being courted?

It is time for all Iranians in the United States and elsewhere to raise their voices in opposition to such last minute efforts to save a regime that has lost total support of its own people. A regime that is currently deeply involved in support of terrorism against its own people as well as the American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. A regime that has a long record of terrorist acts against the Americans for the past twenty-five years. A regime that has been forced to admit that it has violated its obligations under the Non-proliferation treaty. A regime that continues to violate the most basic rights of its own people.

At a time when the European Union has publicly denounced the regime in Tehran and has conditioned all its future cooperation on full democratization of the country, why is the US Congressional throwing a lifeline to this regime?

Is there again another "intelligence failure" and people in Washington don't know what is really going on in Iran? Or have they allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by a clever former intelligence ministry official who is now serving as the regime's ambassador at the UN?

It's time for raising our voices of protest by contacting the Whitehouse and the US Congress against this untimely and unfortunate decision.

http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2004&m=01&d=31&a=2

Trouble in Tehran

January 27, 2004
Foreign Affairs
Jahangir Amuzegar

Iran's march toward becoming a secular democracy, which seemed to be accelerating just a year ago, has been significantly slowed down by recent events abroad and at home.

The ruling theocracy's fear that Iran would soon be flanked by two secular, pro-American regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq has abated as the situation in Afghanistan has grown more tenuous and Washington's problems in Iraq have continued to mount. Meanwhile, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei's grip on reformists in Iran seems to be tightening, just as the country gets ready for parliamentary elections next month.

Last year, the Taliban's crushing defeat and the rise of a reform-minded political elite raised much hope for the dawn of a modern democratic government in Afghanistan that would stand in sharp contrast to Iranian-style theocracy. But these hopes were dashed last month when the loya jirga ratified a new constitution that is supposed to adhere to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (including by granting equal rights to women) but in fact forbids passing any law contrary to Islamic scripture. The UN's endorsement of this document gives further credence to President Muhammad Khatami's concept of "Islamic democracy" and thus extends the Islamic Republic's life expectancy.

In Iraq, both the turmoil caused by postwar insurgencies and the rising prestige and political clout of the Shi'ite Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani have also been a boon to Iran's Islamic Republic. The grand ayatollah's long-held goal of making Iraq an Islamic state and the possibility of a Shi'ite alliance between Iran and Iraq are bound to be encouraging to the Iranian mullahs. Iraq's uncertain future has thus emboldened Iranian hard-liners to thwart secular-oriented reforms at home.

Finally, Khatami's failure in his six-year opposition to Iran's clerical establishment has also temporarily slowed the liberalization process. Repeated hints that he would resign if his two reform bills were rejected by the arch-conservative Council of Guardians have proved to be an empty threat. Earlier this month, the Council disqualified wholesale some 3,600 candidates to upcoming parliamentary elections, fueling the political crisis between clerics and reformists and increasing the chances of a landslide victory by hard-liners. But the crisis will eventually be solved one way or another, and it can only slow down, rather than stop, the countdown to Iran's "D" day.

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040127faupdate83175/jahangir-amuzegar/trouble-in-tehran.html

Iran Says No Plans to Receive U.S. Congress Team

January 31, 2004
Reuters
Reuters.com

TEHRAN -- Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said on Saturday there were no plans for U.S. congressional aides to visit Tehran next month, in what some U.S. senators had said could be a step toward improving relations. "Such a trip is not on our agenda," Hamid Reza Asefi told the official IRNA news agency.

U.S. Senator Arlen Specter said in Washington on Friday that a group of U.S. congressional aides would visit Iran next month, in a potential step toward renewing official contacts, severed after the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Specter said the staff delegation "was confirmed to go next month" but he declined to be more specific.

Asefi gave no reason for Iran's apparent change of mind. Iran this month rejected a proposed visit by a U.S. humanitarian delegation led by Senator Elizabeth Dole after December's devastating earthquake in southeastern Iran.

It would be the first such visit to Iran since Washington broke ties with Tehran shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution when radical students stormed the U.S. embassy and held 52 hostages for 444 days.

Specter and Senator Bob Ney said they hoped a February visit would lead to official meetings between members of Congress and Iran's parliament.

President Bush in 2002 labeled Iran part of an "axis of evil" with North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

But U.S. officials have spoken in recent weeks of a willingness to resume a dialogue with Iran which last year agreed to snap inspections of nuclear facilities Washington believes could be part of a secret atomic bomb making program.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4254624

Iran Poll Crisis Reaches Deadlock

January 31, 2004
BBC News
BBCi

Iran's President Mohammad Khatami says deadlock has been reached in attempts to overturn a ban by hardliners on reformists standing for parliament. His Interior Minister Abdolvahed Moussavi Lari said "the possibility of organising a free and competitive election does not exist".

"We do not consider this election to be legitimate," he was quoted as saying.

Thousands of candidates have been barred from the 20 February poll by the hardline Guardian Council.

The bans have drawn daily protests from reformist MPs, 80 of whom had been disqualified from standing for re-election, and a boycott threat from a student group.

Mr Khatami had been trying to reach a compromise with the Guardian Council - an unelected 12-member body that vets candidates for office and all laws - but that compromise appears decidely one-sided, says the BBC's Miranda Eeles in Tehran.

The president was expected to convene an extraordinary government meeting on Saturday to discuss what steps to take.

"This government will only organise free and competitive elections," state news agency Irna quoted him as saying.

No postponement

Mr Lari had requested the postponement of the poll, but the Guardian Council said it "saw no legal, political, security or competition environment reasons" to do so.

On Friday, the Guardian Council said it had reversed bans on a third of the candidates initially barred.

"More than 1,160 candidates were reinstated," the Council said, after a deadline for reviewing the bans expired.

The body originally disqualified about 3,600 of 7,900 candidates.

The Guardian Council had already reinstated several hundred candidates following a call for a review by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The latest reinstatements bring the official number of candidates to about 5,450.

On Thursday, Iran's provincial governors complained that there were not enough candidates for a free and fair election.

Earlier, Iran's main pro-democracy students' group, the Office for Fostering Unity, called on people not to vote.

The groups also urged reformist MPs to continue their protests against the disqualifications.

On Wednesday President Mohammad Khatami, himself a reformist, warned he would not accept even a single "unfair" disqualification.

"Even if one person has been disqualified unfairly, as president, I will defend his right," Mr Khatami said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3446927.stm

Iran Cabinet Delays Election Crisis Talks

January 31, 2004
The Associated Press
ABC News

TEHRAN, Iran -- President Mohammad Khatami was admitted to the hospital Saturday with severe back pain, forcing the postponement of an emergency Cabinet meeting to discuss the crisis over parliamentary elections, his office told The Associated Press.

Earlier Saturday, Khatami indicated that his government could not proceed with the Feb. 20 vote under conditions imposed by the hard-line Guardian Council, which disqualified more than 2,000 reformist candidates from the ballot.

"My government will only hold competitive and free elections ... the parliament must represent the views of the majority and include all (political) tendencies," the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Khatami as saying.

The deepening conflict over the election Iran's worse political crisis in years came as the Islamic nation marked the 25th anniversary of the revolution that swept to power the anti-American, hard-line clerics who rule alongside the government.

After disqualifying more than 3,600 of the 8,200 people who filed papers to stand for election, the clerics of the Guardian Council softened their position Friday by reinstating 1,160 candidates.

But more than 2,400 prominent reformist politicians and party leaders including 80 sitting lawmakers remained barred, and Friday, by law, was the last day for any more changes.

Reformists called Friday's action cosmetic and threatened to boycott the election. They accuse the clerics of trying to sway the vote to regain control of the 290-seat parliament, which the conservatives lost four years ago for the first time since the 1979 revolution.

On Saturday, Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari reiterated the reformists' view of the vote as undemocratic.

"There is no possibility of competitive, free and fair elections," IRNA quoted Lari as saying. "We don't consider this election as legitimate."

Lari had urged the clerics to postpone the vote, but the Guardian Council rejected that Friday. While the interior ministry organizes elections, the 12-member, unelected council has an overriding, supervisory power.

Khatami spoke after he and his Cabinet visited the mausoleum of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, father of the Islamic revolution that toppled U.S. ally Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, as part of anniversary commemorations.

He had called a special Cabinet meeting for later Saturday, but that was canceled because of his back problem and hospitalization, a senior official in Khatami's office said. "The president has had back problems for a long time," the official told AP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Khatami, whose program of greater democracy and a relaxation of the Islamic social code has been thwarted by hard-liners, could be left with two options.

He could refuse to hold elections, which would leave voting in the hands of hard-liners most likely relying on the elite Revolutionary Guards and supporting military forces to organize the polls.

Or, he could challenge the Guardian Council and instruct the Interior Ministry to include all disqualified candidates in the ballots. The council claims the barred candidates lacked the criteria to stand for office even those already in parliament.

Most members of the council are hand-picked by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say over its actions.

Saeed Shariati, a leader of Iran's biggest reformist party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front, said his party would announce Monday whether it would boycott the vote.

"The council statement means there is no option left for us but to boycott this sham election ... as Iran's biggest party, almost all our candidates have been barred," Shariati said Friday.

The front's leader, Mohammad Reza Khatami, is the president's brother, a deputy speaker of parliament and one of the disqualified candidates.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040131_743.html

Iran's Khatami Retracts Comment Over "Deadlock"

January 31, 2004
AFP
IranMania

TEHRAN -- The office of Iran's embattled President Mohammad Khatami Saturday ordered media to retract his comment that his government had reached a "deadlock" with powerful conservatives in a crisis over forthcoming elections.

"We have reached a deadlock with the Guardians Council regarding the qualifications of candidates," the embattled president was quoted as saying earlier in the day by the official news agency IRNA, the student news agency ISNA and several other Iranian news outlets.

However, the president's media office later asserted the comment "does not exist."

"In the official and quotable comments of the esteemed president, this sentence and comment does not exist," it said in a statement, without giving any explanation for its retraction.

Khatami's comment came amid a serious stand-off with the conservative-run Guardians Council, a political watchdog that has disqualified thousands of pro-reform candidates from contesting the February 20 parliament elections.

The president's statement, an apparent admission of defeat, also overshadowed a wreath-laying ceremony at the mausoleum of Iran's late revolutionary founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Iran's clerical regime is currently marking the 25th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=22162&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs

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