Word: reformist
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Democracy, the Iranian Way Your Notebook item reported on reformist candidates being banned from Iran's parliamentary elections [Jan. 26]. The U.S. and its allies need to be careful about criticizing Iran's internal political affairs. They must acknowledge that Western forms of democracy don't fit every society. Iran is a deeply Muslim nation, an established Islamic republic, with our own interpretation of democracy based on the holy Koran and on the fatwas of our leaders. So, please, let us be ourselves. Reza Bozorg Isfahan, Iran...
...power struggle in Iran--mullah warfare, some Iranians call it--is over, and the conservatives have won. The big winner is Khamenei, 64, who played a decisive role in putting his conservative allies back in power. The main loser is reformist President Mohammed Khatami, who will serve the last year of his two terms of office facing a hostile parliament and the possibility that conservatives will win the presidency in 2005. It's a prospect that fills Khamenei's allies with glee. "A quarter of a century after the triumph of the Islamic revolution," boasts Mohammed Kazem Anbarlui, editor...
...reformists' defeat owes partly to the fact that most of them didn't even run. The Khamenei-appointed Guardian Council, a powerful oversight body consisting of six clerics and six Islamic jurists, barred hundreds of reformists, including 87 members of the Majlis, from standing as candidates on various grounds, such as undermining the authority of the Supreme Leader. Among them was Reza Khatami, deputy speaker and brother of Iran's President. Ten reformist parties, including Reza Khatami's Islamic Iran Participation Front, then pulled out of the balloting, saying they could not run in "illegal and unjust" polls. President Khatami...
Besides the Guardian Council, Khamenei appoints other key bodies like the Expediency Council, a sort of Iranian House of Lords, and the Iranian judiciary. In the past four years, together they have shut down reformist newspapers, jailed outspoken journalists and overturned every major reform bill approved by the Majlis. Student demonstrations protesting the actions have been suppressed by the security forces, leaving among young people a trail of disillusionment with Khamenei--and with Khatami for not speaking out or resigning in protest...
Open criticism of the government last week reached a level not seen since the fall of Shah Reza Pahlavi. In a letter to Khamenei, angry reformist Majlis members denounced his repressive policies and compared him unflatteringly with his predecessor. "The popular revolution brought freedom and independence in the name of Islam," they wrote. "But now you lead a system in which legitimate freedoms and the rights of the people are being trampled in the name of Islam." Khamenei's allies responded immediately, with judicial officials shutting down Iran's two leading reformist dailies for daring to publish parts...