IRANIAN CAUCUS URGES VOTERS TO TURN OUT FOR KHATAMI
By Parviz Mardani
COLOGNE 12 May (IPS) Participants at the last meeting of the "Committee for the Defence of Reforms in Iran" reached the conclusion that boycotting the forthcoming presidential elections would backfire on both the future of the reform movements and President Khatami’s chances to advance the reforms further.
Meeting in the German city of Cologne, the multi-party "Committee" expressed its full support for both the candidacy of the embattled President Mohammad Khatami and the reforms process undertaken by him during his first mandate that ends in less than three weeks time.
Participants also denounced the arrest of some sixty prominent members of Iran Freedom Movement (IFM) or affiliated to the Islamist-nationalist groups as well as the "rogue" attitude of the leader-controlled Islamic Judiciary against reformists, including the imprisonment of influential journalists and the "bundle closure" of more than 40 publications, most of them pro-reforms and brutal repression of students.
The meeting was also the scene of open, but democratic clashes between some participants, including Mr. Mehdi Khanbaba-Tehrani, a former Marxist guerilla who opposing one particular point in the final communiqué, said everyone in Iran has now realised that civic rights must be separated from religious ones, the same as religion must be kept separated from politics.
"It is impossible to adhere to the human rights and lead a nation towards democracy and prosperity in the present, complex and complicated world on plans and projects worked out from divine books and guidelines from prophets or imams", Mr. Khanbaba-Tehrani noted.
Analysing the present situation in Iran, Mr. Khanbaba-Tehrani stressed that despite utter pressure and violence from the ruling hard liners, the reforms process would not stop, even if the present clerical rulers arrest all reformists, all the islamist-nationalists and even if they erects walls around Iran and turn it into an immense jail", he further said.
Mr. Babak Amir-Khosravi, of the Paris-based Iranian People’s Democratic Party opposed the idea of boycotting the coming presidential elections, observing that not only such a scheme might have come from the conservatives them selves, but also in any case, boycotting the elections would benefit greatly the ruling hard liners.
Observing that despite all their pressures, plots and plans aimed at dissuading Mr. Khatami from running in the 8 June elections, the president had decided to seek another mandate from the people, Mr. Amir-Khosravi urged the Iranians to go massively to the polls and vote again for Khatami and, "by doing so, once again reject the rule of the conservatives", he said.
Mr. Mansour Bayatzadeh of the Organisation of Iranian Socialists pointed to the basic contradictions that exists in the Iranian Constitution and concluded that even if the Constitution were applied word by word, it would not make Iran a democracy.
However, he said, one of the merits of the Second Khordad (23 May) Movement is that people have discovered the importance of elections, the importance of voting and the importance of electing their candidates.
Mr. Mehran Barati representing Iranian Nationalist Republicans others speaking on behalf of the Fada’iyan Khalq Organisation (Majority) and National Front discussed the current situation in Iran in the light of the latest wave of arrests reiterated on the importance of both a massive turn out in favour of Mr. Khatami. ENDS COMMITTEE ELECTIONS 11501