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Teheran uses courts to keep reformers out of elections by GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN, PHILIP SHERWELL AND KAY BIOUKI in Teheran 15 April 2007, The Sunday Telegraph THE IRANIAN government has launched a crackdown on its critics in an apparent attempt to prevent them from standing in forthcoming parliamentary elections. While Iran's international opponents have been distracted by the row over the country's nuclear programme and the British naval hostages, Teheran has taken the opportunity to tackle reformers targeted by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad since he came to power. As part of a wider crackdown, Iran's parliament has also passed laws enabling security organisations - including the Revolutionary Guard, which was responsible for kidnapping the 15 Britons - to detain suspects for months for the purposes of interrogation. Police are also reportedly planning to tackle more low-level dissent, including standards of public attire. Women who fail to cover their hair fully, or who wear skirts or coats considered immodestly short, are expected to be among the first targets in the next few days. Some western diplomats are sceptical about the credentials of the reformists, regarding them as only slightly more moderate than Ahmadinejad's hardliners, though they enjoyed more freedom under the previous presidency of Mohammad Khatami, who held the post from 1997 to 2005. Mr Khatami, whose foreign policy was more conciliatory than his successor's, was elected on the back of promises to liberalise some parts of Iranian life. But his policies brought him into conflict with supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei and religious hardliners. Those who took advantage of the greater freedoms under Mr Khatami's regime are now suffering the backlash. One of the reformers singled out for attention is Mostafa Tajzadeh, a former deputy interior minister facing trial on charges of undermining state security. Mr Tajzadeh, a Teheran city councillor, is a strong supporter of the 1979 Islamic revolution but has repeatedly insisted the regime should not silence its critics. An even bigger name, Reza Khatami, the younger brother of the former president and editor of the banned reformist newspaper Mosharekat, has been charged with "activities that undermine the Islamic system''. Mr Khatami, who is married to the granddaughter of the Islamic republic's founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, also has impressive revolutionary credentials - as a student, he was involved in the US embassy siege and he is a former deputy parliamentary speaker. Last night Mohsen Armin, a spokesman for the reformist Organisation of Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution party, said the aim of the charges was to prevent dissidents standing in the forthcoming elections. "They want to have a sword above our head and the rest is excuses,'' he said. "The main issue here is that in the coming year we have the parliamentary elections. Because rejecting reformist candidates in the previous election created problems for the judiciary, they are taking a different route this time.'' Rather than risk further international criticism for an overt clampdown on opponents, he said the government was using the courts to neuter them. "What they want to do is to put the reformists in court now, and sentence them for any reason. If they have a court record, they will automatically be barred from standing for election,'' he said. "The hardliners desperately want to see the back of the reformists and have proved that they are willing to use any kind of tactic to achieve their goal.'' Mr Armin, who has previously been fined one million tomans ( pounds 600) for comments he made about the judiciary, said Mr Tajzadeh had been accused of cheating in an earlier election, resulting in the cancellation of 700,000 votes and the election of Gholan Ali Hadad Adel, the present parliamentary speaker. He said the authorities were also targeting newspapers. Mosharekat is just one of more than 30 journals that operated under the Khatami administration but have since been closed down. Amir Taheri, an exiled Iranian journalist based in Europe, said the regime was preparing show trials for scores of dissidents. "It seems to be setting the stage for show trials that recall the worst days of Stalinism in the Soviet Union,'' he said.
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