Today, Mr. Massoud Rajavi, President of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, described the clerical regime's upcoming parliamentary election "another masquerade against the people" and "a bid to conceal the fact that the… regime has usurped the nation's sovereignty." Mr. Rajavi emphasized that the Iranian people will boycott this sham election as they have done in past.

Mr. Rajavi described every form of contribution to this masquerade or standing as candidates in this "election" as a betrayal of the supreme interests of the Iranian nation, a direct aid to the mullahs' evil rule, allowing the regime to perpetuate its suppression, torture and executions.

"As the Iranian Resistance has announced on many occasions in the past, the mullahs' regime can test how the Iranian people would vote by holding an election for a constituent assembly with necessary guarantees under United Nations observation, in the context of people's sovereignty and not mullahs' supremacy," a statement by the NCR said.

Mr. Rajavi emphasized that regardless of the outcome of the elections and the faction that would have the upper hand, the election would significantly aggravate the power struggle and strife within the clerical regime and its leadership and speed up its overthrow.
 

Khatami's Minister: Students Should Help Officials Hold A Violent-Free Voting Tehran, State-Run News Agency (IRNA), December 7

Tehran - Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Ataollah Mohajerani called upon university students to help officials to organize peacefully the sixth round of the parliamentary elections.

"we all have to take care of holding the voting in a peaceful and healthy manner", Mohajerani said Addressing a gathering of students in the management faculty of Tehran university…

He added that, "some may try to instigate students and this is why the students should be vigilant for the issue."
 
 

"Violence Fringe" in Mullahs' Factional Infighting, The Times of London, December 7

Seen through the car windows as one is sped from ministry to ministry, the crowds on the well-swept Tehran streets seem busy and purposeful. One recalls similar visits to Eastern European capitals, and the same impressions of order and solidity; but where are those regimes today? Is Iran any different?

… there remains the violent fringe in Iranian politics. Journalists and dissidents have been murdered, and although this has resulted in purges of the intelligence service, no public trials have yet taken place. A deputy in the parliament recently commented that: "There are many brave and self-sacrificing youths ready to blast open the breasts of those who conspire to bring down the most holy Islamic system of government in the world."

Iran's clerical establishment must know, however, that change is overdue. Half the population was born after the revolution of 1979 and the young are increasingly restless. Unemployment is high and rising, and per capita GDP is less than before the revolution. In the words of Edmund Burke: "A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation."
 

"Kind of People" Who Could Rally!, Agence France Presse, December 8

TEHRAN - A student rally scheduled for Wednesday in Tehran in support of jailed politician and newspaper editor Abdollah Nuri was postponed due to "possible threats," a student representative told AFP.

"We had ordered a number of posters carrying slogans in favor and defense of Nuri. But the printing houses would not print them ... it appears that there may have been possible threats against them by pressure groups," a member of the student Office for Consolidation and Unity (OCU), the organizer of the rally, told AFP.

"There were also a number of disagreements with Tehran university over the kind of people who would attend the rally, but we are doing our best so that hopefully this rally can take place next week," the student, who asked to remain unnamed, said.
 

Pollution Engulfs Iranian Capital, Associated Press, December 8

TEHRAN - Iranian authorities have asked people suffering from heart and asthma problems to remain indoors after air pollution in the capital, Tehran, reached dangerous levels Wednesday, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Authorities have also ordered kindergartens and elementary schools to remain closed Thursday and have imposed unspecified traffic restrictions.

Last year, several thousand schools were shut down after air pollution reached more than six times the acceptable level set by the World Health Organization.
 

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