HARD LINE IRANIAN CLERICS GETTING CLOSER TO AFGHAN TALEBAN
PARIS 24 Mar. (IPS) Under guidance of Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i, its fundamentalist leader, the Islamic Republic moved Friday closer to the Taleban rulers in neighbouring Afghanistan when a senior cleric warned that the role and position of representative of the people did not exist in Islam.
"In an Islamic government, nothing out of Islam has value and credit", said Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, a member of the leader-appointed Council of Guardians, speaking during the Friday prayers in Teheran.
Quoting the Article Four of the Constitution, Mr. Yazdi, a hawkish cleric close to the leader pointed out that in an Islamic government, "everything must be based on Islamic laws and values and all laws and regulations, being cultural, political, financial or judicial must be based on Islamic codes"
Iranian political analysts said Mr. Yazdi’s remarks were a follow-up of the latest offensive declared by Ayatollah Khamenehe'i on the Islamist-nationalists, a current that enjoys the largest of support among the population, including the young Islamist seminarists known as "talabeh", because it offers a modern reading of Islam in the one hand and urges the adaptation of the faith with modernity by making away with some of Islams rigid, controversial and unnecessary laws.
During a night raid operated last Sunday on the house of Mr. Mohammad Basteh-Negar, a member of the now banned Iran Freedom Movement (IFM), more than 21 personalities, including political activists, journalists, intellectuals and scholars, all affiliated to the Islamist-Nationalists and IFM, had been arrested and latter charged of "conspiring against the state and plotting the overthrow of the Islamic Republic".
At the same, the authorities closed four more publications close to the Nationalist-religious and announced the more members of he current would be arrested.
The analysts made a rapprochement between the hard line adopted by fundamentalist islamist in both Iran and in Afghanistan against moderate elements.
Quoting the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founding father of the Islamic Republic, Mr. Yazdi, a former Head of the Judiciary, said Members of the Majles have no rights of representatively for anything that is outside Islam.
In recent speeches, Ayatollah Khamenehe'i had at several occasions blasted the reformists and the nationalist-religious who dominates the Majles, a parliament that has become more and more outspoken against the ruling conservatives and challenges overtly the Judiciary, the power Mr. Khamenehe'i uses as his police and political arms.
Belittling the lawmakers, Mr. Yazdi, a powerful and prolific orator who can talk for hours with a strong voice and a vulgar tone told they had no right to present any bill if not based on Islam. "Being member of the Majles is not legislating or lawmaking. If it is called so, it is just by a mere coincidence", he reminded the deputies.
Mr. Yazdi told worshipers, the legislative work of the deputies is limited only to Islamic issues, but did not explain why then MMs are chosen by the people and not nominated by the leader and why, with the existence of the Council of Guardians, the body in charge of checking the conformity of laws with Islamic canons, one needs the Majles at all?
Nevertheless, he observed that the lawmaker as limited in his duty to the orders and principles of Islam. "Whatever the meaning and the spirit of the representative, he has no right to pass any laws that are outside the framework of Islam", he added.
The Majles and the Judiciary clashed several times in the last months over a number of issues, most particularly the lawmakers’ efforts to investigate independently the serial murders of prominent politicians and intellectuals, the shooting on Mr. Sa’id Hajjarian, considered as the "architect" of the victories of the reformists in the presidential election of 1997 and legislative race of 2000, the "bundle closure" of reformist newspapers and imprisonment of a dozen influential journalists etc.
Not only the Judiciary has forbidden the MMs to investigate, but has summoned some of them to courts on various charges.
Meanwhile, Ayatollah Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, another fundamentalist cleric who is much respected by the leader, compared thoughts and ideas with "microbes".
Speaking at the same Friday ceremony, Mr. Mesbah-Yazdi said freedom does not mean spreading "microbes" in the society on the grounds that freedom should not be curtailed
"Poisonous thoughts and articles serve as a microbe in the society", he added, urging the government to prevent publication of harmful articles just as it checks the distribution of adulterated or contaminated foodstuff and medicine'', he said.
Though in his sermon Mr. Yazdi had urged the official news agency IRNA to be "correct and fair and conscientious" in its task of reporting the information, yet, the agency had censored in it’s English service all the part of the cleric’s speech concerning the role of the deputies.
"What would be the result, if the media, especially IRNA, censure statements, cover part of them and refuse to use the others or add something to the original?'' asked Yazdi. ENDS YAZDI MAJLE24301