January 12, 2004

Iranian leader shuns intervention

Iran's supreme leader has said the controversy over next month's parliamentary elections must be resolved through "legal channels."[Sneer quotes mine. When shari'a is your law. This could only mean prison, maiming or execution for the dissenters.--Jen]

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said he would only intervene after legal procedures had been exhausted.

The row began after the Guardian Council - a hardline body made up of clerics and Islamic lawyers - barred 2,000-plus reformists from standing.

The decision provoked a storm of protests from reformers.

The provincial governors in charge of administering the elections say they will resign unless the ban is reversed, and 80 reformist deputies are continuing a sit-in inside the Iranian parliament.

Reformist President Mohammad Khatami has appealed for calm.
[...]
The 12-member Council of Guardians is empowered to ensure parliament's actions comply with Islamic principles.

Council spokesman Mohammad Jahromi said 2,033 of the 8,200 candidates had been barred but MPs said the figure was higher.

MP Reza Yousefian said more than 80 of 290 MPs had been banned from re-election.

Iran's parliament is dominated by the reformists, who have won all major national elections since 1997.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who is currently visiting Tehran, has said that a clear and transparent electoral process was very important to the EU.

"It's very difficult for me to explain [to the European Parliament] how MPs who are representatives of the people could not participate again in the election," he said.

Javier Solana, you moron.
Does anything but BS and politico gobbledygoop ever come out of your mouth or Kofi Annan's?
Javier's got some 'splaining to do while untold thousands, if not millions, of Iranians struggle for the basic human liberty to lead happy lives!
It's good, but painful, to see the fiction that Iran is being run by "reformists" exposed as the lie it has always been so that all the world can see.
I pray for the day of Iran's liberation from the clerics!
But as Michael Ledeen always says about that, "Faster, please."