CABINET MINISTERS WARNED THE LEADER ON THE POLITICAL SITUATION
TEHRAN 5 Feb. (IPS) In a letter to the leader of the Islamic Republic, fifteen ministers have joined eighty reformist lawmakers, drawing his attention to the political situation that prevails in Iran.
This is the first time that cabinet ministers take such an initiative, analysts noted, adding that the move had been approved by the embattled President, Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Khatami, who, in a visible shift of line, has moved closer to the ruling conservatives.
Confirming the news, Interior Minister Hojjatoleslam Anbdolvahed Moosavi-Lari told journalists that "being ministers of the leader", it was "normal" that they communicate with Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i.
He, or some internet sites close to the reformists who reported the sending of the letter to Mr. Khameneh’i did not name the signatories, nor did they revealed the content of the letter.
But informed sources told Iran Press Service that the missive contained a blunt warning about the "dangerous and explosive situation" created as a result of the endless feud between the two wing of the ruling theocracy, urging him to put an end to interferences of the Judiciary in the affairs reserved "by law and by the Constitution" to the elected organs of the nation, meaning the Executive and the legislative, both controlled by the reformists, but dwarfed by the few conservatives who control the regime.
According to the source, who asked not be named, the letter followed the
"dramatic" open letter written last week by Mr. Ezzatollah Sahhabi,
a veteran journalist and political dissident associated with the
Nationalist-religious groups to the heads of the three powers, disclosing that
though he had been freed from prison on bail, yet his "harassment" but
what he described as "rogue elements" continue unabated.
In the letter, Mr. Sahhabi revealed in chilling details his prison conditions, the tortures he suffered during endless sessions of "daily and nightly" interrogations by unidentified interrogators while kept in sections reserved to dangerous common law prisoners like killers, psychopaths and drug dealers before being transferred to a special prison named by the guards as "Den of the Phantoms".
Mr. Sahhabi said the tortures he was subject during the months he spent in solitary confinement were "so inhuman" and "unbearable" that on several occasions he lost conscience and was treated in the CCU, suffering from heart and nerve attacks.
In his open letter to Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Khatami, Hojjatoleslam Mehdi Karroobi and Ayatollah Mahmood Hashemi-Shahroodi, respectively in charge of the Executive, Legislative and Judiciary powers of the Islamic Republic, Mr. Sahhabi said the interrogators told him that they get orders from un-named persons and organs separate from the Executive and the Legislative.
"Being harassed by the same rogue elements even as I was released on bail, I have no other way than to write to you, urging you to uphold your legal and religious duties by ordering the stop of these pressures or, I’m ready to be hanged or executed rather than continue the present situation".
The letter created uproars among both the reformists and the conservatives, with both the Head of the Judiciary and the president of the Islamic revolution tribunals accusing Mr. Sahhabi of telling lies, asking him why he wrote an open letter instead of reporting his case directly to the Judiciary.
But the reformists say the details revealed by the veteran dissident shows that the "rogue elements" who carried the "chain murders" of 1998 and other assassinations are still at work and controlled by the Judiciary.
Both the President and the Speaker of the Majles promised to follow up Mr. Sahhabi’s letter, but observers doubt they could go very far, the Judiciary being controlled directly by Mr. Khameneh'i, serving as his political and police arms against the dissidents.
Mr. Sahhabi testified Wednesday at the Article 90 Committee of the Majles, but nothing was reported by the press about the meeting, as journalists were barred from the session. ENDS MINISTERS LETTER 5203