Word: tajzadeh
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Dates: during 2001-2001
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...Tehran University, students lined the aisles and climbed over one another to grab a seat for the annual meeting of Islamic student groups. Expectantly eyeing the stage door, many clutched black-and-white photocopies of the face of the man they had gathered to hear: Deputy Interior Minister Mostafa Tajzadeh, who was sentenced to a year in prison the previous day by the hard-line judiciary for allegedly rigging last year's parliamentary elections that swept reformists to power...
...Tajzadeh's crime isn't clear to the people," cried a student leader to a roar of applause. "Is it because he stood against the guardians of power? Because he safeguarded people's vote? He's the new hero of democracy in Iran...
...Tajzadeh became a hero of the reform movement when as supervisor of the parliamentary elections he defended the reformist victory, which the country's hardline Guardian Council threatened to annul. This week's sentence bars Tajzadeh from monitoring elections - most significantly the June presidential race - for the next six years. The decision is seen as a stepped-up campaign to discourage moderate President Mohammed Khatami from running for reelection, rather than as a move to facilitate rigging the June vote itself. Flustered by the hardline backlash, the cautious Khatami may decline to run if the election turns into a confrontation...
...Though they waited for nearly two hours, portraits in hand, the students were disappointed when Tajzadeh didn't show up. Mohammed Reza Khatami attempted to pacify them. "Others will fill his place," he said. "One cannot lose hope over one person's defeat. All this is happening to push us to announce the funeral of reform...
CHARGED. MOSTAFA TAJZADEH, 43, outspoken reformist Iranian deputy Interior Minister and close ally of embattled President Mohammad Khatami, on charges of vote-rigging during last February's parliamentary elections, at a closed-door hearing; in Tehran. Tajzadeh has come under renewed fire from hardliners following his appointment two months ago as supervisor of the presidential elections due next summer...