WASHINGTON - A bipartisan group of U.S. senators sought Wednesday to register congressional displeasure with Iran's crackdown on student protesters and democracy advocates.

"This is an untenable situation and should be loudly and categorically condemned by all free nations of the world," said Sen. Sam Brownback.

Brownback, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, drafted a resolution condemning "the repressive actions taken by the Iranian government against the democratic movement of Iran."

"Sadly, the response of the Iranian government to this orderly exercise of democratic protest has been more of the same repression - more imprisonment, more torture and more death," said Lieberman.

Also sponsoring the resolution are Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and Foreign Relations Chairman Jesse Helms.

It calls on the Iranian government to respect fundamental principles of human rights and to release unharmed the student leaders and other pro-democracy activists the government continues to detain. Brownback told reporters it is "wishful thinking" to expect to see any signs of moderation from the present government in Iran. "These pro-democracy activists need to know that the world has heard their voices and that the world is watching and aware of the pressure and repression to which they are being subjected," Brownback said.
 
 

Court Shuts Pro-Khatami Daily, Reuters, August 4

TEHRAN - Iran's clerical court has banned the country's leading pro-Khatami newspaper for five years and barred its publisher from journalism, the official IRNA news agency said Wednesday.

It said the court ordered a ban on the daily Salam for printing secret documents, while publisher Mohammad Mousavi-Khoeiniha, a powerful cleric, was suspended from journalism for three years.

The ruling by the Special Court for Clergy silences one of the most influential voices backing Khatami. The court also sentenced Mousavi-Khoeiniha, a former prosecutor general, to prison and lashes. However, both were suspended in light of his "revolutionary credentials." [Khoiniha led a group of students who seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held diplomats hostage for 444 days. (AP)]
 
 

Two Years Later, Khatami's Position is as Weak as Ever, Agence France Presse, August 3

TEHRAN - Mohammad Khatami took office two years ago Tuesday with an ambitious program. But at every step of his cautious agenda Khatami has found unyielding opposition from conservatives and hard-liners while his supporters remain frustrated by the glacial pace of change.

His efforts to polish Iran's image abroad have been marred by political turmoil at home, where wholesale arrests and bloody police crackdowns have revealed a state apparatus out of tune with his calls for freedom.

In a society where change is measured in inches Iran's powerful forces of reaction have demonstrated that Khatami still has miles to go.

The conservative-dominated judiciary marked his two-year anniversary by announcing draconian "thought-crime" legislation which, if voted into law, would make almost any criticism of the regime a political crime.

The increasingly vocal press has been hobbled by hardline courts, which have closed down at least three pro-Khatami papers since the beginning of the year and arrested dozens of journalists.

When security forces and Islamic militants attacked a student protest, it sparked six days of deadly riots and focused international attention on a violent police crackdown wildly at odds with Khatami's repeated promises to institute the rule of law.

The June discovery that Iran had arrested 13 Jews on charges of spying for Israel brought worldwide condemnation for a regime whose international image has not quite fully recovered from the 1979 hostage-taking at the US embassy.

Khatami's vaunted overtures to the West suffered a blow this spring when a planned high-profile visit to France collapsed.
 
 

Alarmed by Prospect of Future Unrest, Rival Factions Compromise on Election Bill, Reuters, August 4

TERHAN - Iran's parliament on Wednesday approved the outline of a bill to dilute the power of conservative clerics to eliminate candidates in next year's legislative elections.

Wednesday's bill appeared to represent a compromise between Khatami's government and the conservatives in parliament and Guardian Council, which have been holding talks to reach a consensus, in an effort to avert political tension ahead of the polls.
 

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