The leader of Iran's ruling clerics must be made more accountable to reform demands and should shed some powers to break a "vicious circle" of control, said the most prominent dissident lawmaker and brother of the country's president.
Mohammad Reza Khatami -- who was deputy parliament speaker and among more than 2,400 candidates blacklisted from today's elections -- offered glimpses of a new high-stakes gambit: trying to pressure Iran's supreme leader and the power base that controls everything from foreign policy to the media.
"They have no accountability to any part of the government and to the people ... We have a vicious circle here," he said Wednesday at the headquarters of his party, the Islamic Participation Front.
The strategy of directly challenging Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could win applause from many Iranians frustrated by stalled efforts for more political and social openness.
But it carries clear risks. The Islamic leadership has come down hard before on those perceived as threats to the system.
On Tuesday, Khatami and other pro-reform lawmakers made public a letter sent to Khamenei accusing him of allowing freedoms to be "trampled in the name of Islam."
The letter served as a parting salvo by banned reform candidates calling the elections a "parliamentary coup" and urging for a voter boycott. It also was a taboo-breaking missive against the country's top religious and political authority -- whose supporters say holds divine right to rule.
Khatami said Khamenei should dismantle some of his power structure to allow elected officials room to make key decisions.
"They know what the people want and, because of this, I think they should respond to this will of the people ... even if they don't like it," said Khatami, whose brother, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, has lost a great deal of appeal after backing down in his attempts to postpone the elections.
He added that reformers want to reach a point "for people to believe they could change the leader."
It would be a huge challenge.
Khamenei and his inner circle have vast and powerful resources, including militia forces and the judiciary. In recent years, conservatives have detained or intimidated hundreds of reformers and muzzled dozens of publications.
Late Wednesday, two reformist newspapers, Yas-e-No and Sharq, were ordered to suspend publication and top editors and staff were detained by judiciary agents for publishing portions of the reformers' letter to Khamenei, said Issa Sahakhiz, member of the Iranian branch of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS