| PARIS- 2nd Mar.
(IPS)
In an unprecedented warning to the leader of the Islamic Republic, the Office of Consolidating Unity
(OCU), Iran's largest student's organizations tell Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i either he reins the
Judiciary and stop this power harassing students and reformists or the he
might face the same fate as the revolution reserved to Mohammad Reza
Pahlavi, the deposed Iranian Monarch.
Observers said the statement is the strongest and the most explicit ever
warnings issued by the disenchanted Iranian students against the leaders of
the Islamic Republic.
"Many years ago, the late Mehdi Bazargan told Mohammad Reza Pahlavi we are
the last generation talking to you with this language. To those who are in
charge of the interests of the nation, we remind them that reforms are the
last remedy against the separation of generations. If the conservatives,
with their all out pressures and illegal actions stop the process, the result is known in advance. Let's hope it does not happens", the statement
warned Mr. Khameneh'i. Political analysts said the statement, published Thursday by the Iranian
Students News Agency "ISNA" was also an open answer to the leaders speech
made three days ago at the Amir Kabir Technical University, defending the
Judiciary's repression against reformists and reform movement and placing
this power he personally leads above the two others, a clear departure from
the policy of Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini that would always consider
the Legislative as the most important of the regime's three powers. "Placed between mounting demands from its base for bold action and
increasing pressures and restrictions from the Islamic Judiciary, the OCU
had to adopt a stronger attitude and a firmer tone", observed Mr. Ahmad
Salamatian, a Paris-based political analyst.
The statement accuses the Judiciary to obtain forced confessions from political prisoners in order to better silence them. "Some prisoners like
Mr. (Ezzatollah) Sahabi, and (Ali) Afshari have been taken to secret places
and forced to confess that reformists are after the downfall of the regime", the Tehran branch of the OCU disclosed, protesting also to the
arrest of Mrs. Fariba Davudi-Mohajer, a reformist journalist brutalised by
Judiciary agents who had come to arrest her.
In his speech at the Amir Kabir University, Mr. Khameneh'i had likened reformist journalists and intellectuals to apostates and enemies of God, a
sin that is punished by death in the Islamic Republic. "It seems that what thugs failed to achieve yesterday with their clubs,
judges are to obtain with their pens", the statement pointed out, describing as "utterly politic" the attitude of the Judiciary with member
of the press and reformists since last April, the start of the unprecedented clampdown on the reformist and independent press, ordered by
Ayatollah Khameneh'i. "Reformism has become such a crime that high or low-ranking, minister or
deputy, whoever that commits it would never be pardoned for", the students
said, warning: "It is under such conditions that the Iranian people have
lost its confidence to the Judiciary".
According to Mr. Ebrahim Sheykh, a member of the OCU's Executive Bureau,
faced with mounting pressures from the Judiciary, the arrest of some of its
members, the bundle closure of newspapers and silencing of journalists and
reformists by the Judiciary, the Office had no other choice but make clear
its reading of the situation in the running off to the next presidential
elections of June 1980.
However, he reiterated that students would do "nothing more nor special" if
not heard. "We think that if the present situation continue, the regime would loose people's confidence and smaller number would take part in
future elections and this, for a regime that prides itself for the backing
of the people, is a very bitter pill", Mr Sheykh argued. "The day you solidarised with student's, one was not expecting to see the
students being arrested and tortured", the OCU told the lamed leader, warning him that the Iranian people would "no longer believe in any book,
documentary or identity", referring to the controversial so-called documentaries produced and broadcast by the leader-controlled Iranian Radio
and Television against dissident politicians and intellectuals. Addressed respectively to the "Noble Iranian People"; the Head of the
Judiciary; the Members of the Majles; the President and Ayatollah Ali
Khameneh'i, the students also warn Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Khatami to be firmer, for, they say, "in case the helmsman of reform process do not dare
to recapture the people's confidence, fear is that not only the half-friends, but all the reformists, including students, would loose that
crucial trust". The statement stresses that the Judiciary has targeted both the reform
process and the students movement in order to "revenge the blow the Iranian
people dealt the conservatives in the February Legislative elections by arresting present and former students leaders like Mr. Morteza
Ahmadi". Being Iran's largest students organisation representing all Iranian
students, the OCU's statement clear warnings to the ruling conservatives is
both a historic and political event, especially where it warns Mr. Khameneh'i that if he do not hear them, the events that led to the 1979
revolution could be repeated, but the other way round, analysts said.
Source: Iran Press Service |
