February 19, 2004

Iran's conservative clerics urged voters not to boycott Friday's widely criticized elections, which hard-liners look sure to win and bring an end to President Mohammad Khatami's struggle to reform the Islamic Republic.

Leading reformist parties pulled out of the parliamentary polls after thousands of candidates were disqualified. Disenchantment with Khatami's failure to realize reforms during seven years as president means many voters are likely simply to stay at home, handing victory to conservatives.

"I won't be voting and everyone I talk to says the same," said Mohsen, 44, a retired military engineer from poor south Tehran. "They (politicians) just talk but they haven't done anything for the people. They only think about themselves."

Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, whose surprise choice for the 2003 peace prize shone a global spotlight on the drive for human rights in Iran, said this week she would back the boycott campaign and stay away from the polling booths.

Reformists accuse Islamic hard-liners of rigging Friday's parliamentary polls to ensure a conservative majority by barring more than 2,500 mostly reformist candidates from the ballot.
[...]
A hardline win could stop in its tracks a seven-year experiment to reform the 25-year-old Islamic state that saw lively political debate and some relaxation of strict social codes in the oil-producing nation of 66 million people.
[...]
In what many reformers fear could be a sign of things to come, the hardline judiciary on Thursday sealed the campaign headquarters of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, led by Khatami's brother, and blocked access to its news Web Site.
[...]
Two of the most outspoken reformist newspapers were closed on Wednesday for daring to report an unprecedented scathing open letter to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by dozens of the reformist lawmakers banned from Friday's poll.
[...]
Criticizing the absolute Islamic leader is an offence, and the Supreme National Security Council had ordered newspapers not to report the six-page letter in which deputies accused Khamenei of presiding over a system that trampled on people's rights.

Oh, Lord have mercy.
I think this situation in Iran is just tragic, but sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.
Keep the Iranian people on your prayer list--they are the ones who are really suffering.
While it's difficult to discern what's really going on in Iran and to know what to believe of what we read in the news, the general tenor of what we hear and know is pretty dismal, which leads me to believe that the whole truth is likely worse.
These Iranian elections are clearly a farce: if you vote for reform and for your rights, nothing much changes and if you don't vote, you get the same result.
Perhaps many Iranians are staying away from the polls tomorrow because they realize that even if they voted, it wouldn't matter to the mullahs.
Clearly, the Islamic rule of the mullahs needs to end.
We can hope and pray for the people to revolt, but I don't have any idea if that's probable or even possible.
Like their old neighboring rulers the Taliban and Saddam, the mullahs have everyone under lockdown in a vicious police state.
I am worried both about Iran's nukes and about the human rights violations of her citizens.
Stay alert, pray and hope for the best.
I am certain that Iran is overdue for a régime change, but how or when that will happen, only God knows.
Let's just pray and hope that when it comes, it will be effected with minumum violence and loss of life.
On a final note, I hope the Bush-bashers and haters here are paying attention to what happens to those who criticize the government in Iran (prison, torture, and often death) and how lucky they are when they can lie about, carp, whine, disrespect and trash President Bush and do it in all our major papers and TV stations almost 24/7. (Yes, this is a great, great country!)
And I also hope that Americans will be reminded that here, your vote does count and that voting is really your duty as a citizen the next time you're tempted to sit home because your vote "doesn't matter."