DATE=5/23/2000
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=IRAN PARLIAMENT / GUARDIAN COUNCIL
NUMBER=5-46359
BYLINE=DALE GAVLAK
DATELINE=TEHRAN
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Iran's reformist-led parliament is to open
this week. As Dale Gavlak reports from Tehran,
reformists will control Iran's 290-member legislature,
the majlis, for the first time since the 1979 Islamic
revolution.
TEXT: After months of wrangling over ballot counts,
the Guardian Council (election commission) announced
that reformists won all but four of 30 parliamentary
seats contested in Tehran. The Tehran decision,
combined with other results from a second round of
voting, means President Mohamed Khatami's reform
allies will enjoy an unchallenged majority in the
majlis.
The country's most prominent opposition leader,
Ibrahim Yazdi, says there is hope that the new majlis
will overturn recent press restrictions imposed by the
outgoing conservative parliament and other hardline
measures.
/// YAZDI ACT ONE ///
The conservatives do not have any way back, except to
accept and swallow the results of the election,
whether they like it or do not like it. The results
of the people's votes must be respected and the new
majlis must be opened.
/// END ACT ///
Mr. Yazdi, heads an independent national Islamic
party, the Iran Freedom Movement, and once served as
an aide to Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the Islamic
Revolution. He says there is no turning back the
clock.
/// YAZDI ACT TWO ///
The people in Iran have become politically aware and
are appreciating the value of their own votes. This
is a very important development in Iran.
/// END ACT ///
The opposition leader calls the recent banning of
Iran's independent press illegal and says it violates
the country's constitution. Mr. Yazdi accuses the
hard-line press courts of using a criminal law dating
back to the reign of Shah Mohamed Pahlevi to curb
press freedom. That, he says, was something the Shah
had not dared to do.
Last week the judiciary suspended yet another
newspaper, bringing to 18 the number of reformist
publications stopped since April. The "Ham-Mihan"
daily was charged with spreading false reports about
the Islamic Republic's elite Revolutionary Guards,
police, and the intelligence ministry. Former Tehran
mayor and Khatami ally Gholamhossein Karbaschi ran the
paper.
Another editor, Ezotallah Sahabi, saw his monthly Iran
Farda banned earlier. He thinks the press ban will
continue until the beginning of the new parliament.
/// SAHABI ACT ONE - IN FARSI - FADE UNDER ///
Mr. Sahabi says the new parliament probably will allow
the banned publications to reopen. He adds, if not
his paper will go to another that has government
permission to print, but is not, and resume publishing
that way.
Although Mr. Sahabi helped Ayatollah Khomeini to
ignite the Islamic Revolution, he advocates a
separation between religion and the state. Because of
his ideas he was recently taken before the press court
twice, and once before the revolutionary court that
decides national security issues.
/// SAHABI ACT TWO - IN FARSI - FADE UNDER ///
He says he accepted the press court's complaints, but
believes it is a Muslim's religious duty to disagree
with government injustice.
Reformists had feared that the Guardian Council might
order a new election in the capital as one more
conservative tactic to keep the new parliament from
opening. Earlier, the council had annulled 12-
reformist victories in other Iranian towns and awarded
three of those seats to hard-liners. The council
claimed there were discrepancies in the ballot counts.
Townspeople in Damavand, about 50-kilometers outside
Tehran, complain that the council decision voiding
their election results has deprived their reformist
victor from taking his rightful place in the new
parliament.
One of the town's cafe waiters, called Ali, says
Damavand has now been left without proper
representation for the next two years. Ali - speaking
through a translator - says he expects the already
hard economic times for the town to get even worse. .
/// ALI / TRANSLATOR ACT ///
There are some forces working against this town and
against the people's representative. It is like the
car that you leave on the street corner for two-years
and after two-years there will be nothing left.
/// END ACT ///
Conservatives say they fear the new moderate
parliament will do away with their strongholds of
power - such as the Guardian Council and the state-
controlled media.
But - as student activist Akbar Atri explains - people
generally are waiting to see what happens when the new
parliament convenes.
/// ATRI ACT - IN FARSI - FADE UNDER ///
Mr. Atri says that all political groups have come to
the conclusion that the new parliament must start
working at any price. He says the students plan to
criticize the government and the new parliament too.
He says they intend to keep the pressure on.
(SIGNED)
NEB/DG/JWH/RAE
23-May-2000 08:38 AM EDT (23-May-2000 1238 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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