POLLSTERS’ TRIAL MAY PORTEND FURTHER REPRESSION IN IRAN
Ardeshir Moaveni: 1/31/03

Before shutting down two major reformist newspapers in late January, Iran’s hard-line judiciary subjected a group of pollsters and their associates to a political trial that observers worry may signal the beginning of a major crackdown. Judges have accused the pollsters, whom they arrested in November, of falsifying data, consorting with enemies, selling state secrets and misappropriating funds.

The controversial polls, conducted in autumn 2002 for clients including the Iranian parliament and the New Jersey-based Gallup Organization, showed nearly 75 percent of residents of Tehran favoring restored ties with the United States.

Among the accused is Abbas Abdi, who many observers consider one of the chief architects of the reform movement. Abdi, who had participated in the siege of the US Embassy in 1980, has long endorsed reconciliation with the United States. He is also a close adviser to President Mohammed Khatami. Authorities arrested him and two others on November 4, placed them into solitary confinement and reportedly subjected them to round-the-clock interrogation. Appearing repentant before TV cameras in late December, they accepted many of the charges leveled at them while promising to atone for their mistakes. Abdi, in particular, disavowed some of the political tactics that reformists have advanced in recent years. He took care to single out mass resignations and political referenda as harmful to the country.

This display has led many observers to worry that conservatives in the judiciary will use the pollsters’ trial as a battering ram against Khatami and other reformists who seek to diminish hard-liners’ power. The judiciary has since named others, including a reformist leader in parliament, as co-defendants in the case. Said Mortazavi, the Tehran Public Court judge overseeing this and other high-profile trials, indicated on January 6 that the interior minister should undergo investigation by a "Special Court for the Clergy" in connection with the polling case. (The interior minister is a religious cleric.) Many hard-line newspapers have advocated outlawing major reformist organizations like the Islamic Participation Front, which comprises the largest faction in the parliament.

The country is rife with rumors as to conservatives’ future strategic moves. Already, a putative list of 60 leading reformist activists has reportedly been prepared for prosecution, and conservative luminaries, including the heads of the Revolutionary Guard, are on record in recent weeks deriding reformists as the stooges of America and Israel. But many opposition figures suspect that conservatives may intend to thwart Khatami himself. Two bills that the president submitted to the parliament in summer 2002, which would curb the veto power of the conservative Guardian Council, have caused great concern in conservative circles. Some reformists expect the Guardian Council will try to use the pollsters’ trial and its fallout as a pretext to veto the two bills.

As a further example of this strategy, observers point to an outcry raised by hard-liners to a cartoon that appeared in a reformist paper on January 8. The conservatives claimed that the cartoon, which was actually reprinted from a 70-year-old American newspaper, ridiculed the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini by showing a man who was at the time chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States under the thumb of an American president. (Conservatives argued that the judge looked like the late Ayatollah). The Tehran judiciary moved to close the paper that ran the cartoon and another reformist newspaper on January 20.

According to knowledgeable sources within the reform wing, conservative leaders are currently debating the best ways of handling the reformist challenge. One group of politicians known for their past pragmatic approaches advocate a "soft" approach, banning opposition newspapers and disqualifying most if not all reformist candidates in upcoming elections. A second group argues that the trial and the imminence of war next door in Iraq provide an opportune moment to outlaw the main reformist organizations and declare a state of emergency using the threat of foreign intervention. These elements also reason that Washington and other Western powers may actually welcome such an outcome, which would put Iran under the guidance of a unified, if reactionary, leadership.

A key player in setting future conservative strategy is the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Sources say that so far, Ayatollah Khamenei opposes the idea of massive repression, for the risks it entails to the Islamic Republic as a whole.

In this context, some reformists hope that conservatives’ gambles with the trial and its consequences would arouse resentment among the public and would trigger a sort of reprise of the 1997 events. In 1997, a widening gulf between the population and the political leaders led Khatami, a reclusive cleric, to enter elections as a "protest candidate." At that time, the victory of the conservative candidate was assumed to be a forgone conclusion and analysts expected Khatami’s candidacy to encourage high voter turnout and deflect the possiblity of a confrontation with the United States.

Now, of course, world leaders have focused on the distinct possibility of regime change next door in Baghdad, which could destabilize the entire region. Whatever Iranians want out of relations with the United States, nobody doubts that the events of the next few months next door to Iran would to a great extent determine the country’s future.

Editor’s Note: Ardeshir Moaevi is a freelance journalist specializing in Iranian and Afghan affairs.

Email this article | Printer-Friendly Version
Posted January 31, 2003 © Eurasianet
http://www.eurasianet.org

	The Central Eurasia Project aims, through its website, meetings, papers, and grants, to foster a more informed debate about the social, political and economic developments of the Caucasus and Central Asia. It is a program of the Open Society Institute-New York. The Open Society Institute-New York is a private operating and grantmaking foundation that promotes the development of open societies around the world by supporting educational, social, and legal reform, and by encouraging alternative approaches to complex and controversial issues. The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the position of the Open Society Institute and are the sole responsibility of the author or authors.