ROME - … On Saturday, Mohammad Ghoochani was honored by his colleagues as Iran's best political writer. On Sunday, he was in prison.

He was the fifth journalist to be jailed in the week after a decision by … Khamenei…to kill legislation that would have given some breathing room to the reform press.

The charges were the usual ones: "Insulting Islamic sanctities."

Conservatives apparently saw Khamenei's decision as a green light to step up their attacks on the reform media. Since April, 25 pro-reform newspapers have been closed and more than two dozen journalists jailed.

Ghoochani saw his own arrest coming weeks ago… "Assassinations, detentions, press crackdowns, jailing reporters--they are making good use of the tools at hand," he said…

Nearly 60 percent of Iran's 65 million people are under age 25. They have no real memory of the shah or the Islamic revolution that toppled him and they have grown increasingly impatient with the religious straitjacket imposed by the conservative clergy…

A senior journalist in Tehran, one of a dwindling number of high-profile reform journalists not yet in prison, said the press crackdown was not unexpected.

But others, including Ghoochani, are less confident. Ghoochani warned of a possible coup.

"You can have two kinds of coups--the bloody kind or a soft one. I think we may be seeing a soft one in which President Khatami is gradually stripped of all his powers, or they simply dismiss him," he said.

"We were too optimistic about what could be achieved through elections," he added.
 

Pro-Khatami Newspapers Will Not Re-open, Agence France Presse, August 16

TEHRAN - A conservative newspaper, citing an unidentified "high-ranking" official in the judiciary, cast doubt Wednesday on reports that banned papers would be returning to newsstands soon.

The official, quoted in the Qods daily, contradicted statements Monday by Iran's number-two judge, Hadi Marvi, that some of the more than 20 newspapers and magazines could be allowed to re-open.

The press crackdown, launched after pro-Khatami reformers won a majority in parliament in February, has also included the arrest of several leading journalists and Khatami allies.

MP's Speak Of Death Threats From Hard-Liners, Associate Press, August 16

TEHRAN - A pro-Khatami Iranian lawmaker said Wednesday that a hard-line vigilante group has threatened to kill legislators who defied the country's supreme leader.

Ahmad Shirzad, a lawmaker from Isfahan, said in an address to the Majlis, or parliament, that a vigilante group in his city had issued a statement saying its members were supporters of the hard-line supreme leader, Khamenei. "If the bullet is not already in your traitorous heads, it is only because of the (restraint) ordered by the supreme leader," said the statement read by Shirzad and broadcast live on Tehran radio.
 
 

Radical Cleric Appointed To Head "Reformist" Majority In Parliament, Agence France Presse, August 15

TEHRAN - A leading cleric and presidential advisor Ali Akbar Mohtashami has been elected to head the "reformist" majority in parliament, the official IRNA news agency reported Tuesday.

Mohtashami, a former radical and one of the main founders of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, was chosen during a meeting of some 120 MPs here to head the various constituents of the "reformist" coalition in parliament.

Mohtashami, is a former member of the radical core of the pro-Khatami Association of Combattant Clerics (ACC).

His designation as the head of parliament's majority comes as a shock, as the job had been expected to go to the president's brother, Mohammad-Reza Khatami. He was instead given the job as head of the parliament's research department.

The Mohtashami appointment also reconfirms the rise of former Islamic radicals in the new parliament.
 

Another Managing Editor to Appear In Court, The Tehran Times, August 16

TEHRAN - Managing Editor of the now banned weekly Goonagoon, Fatemeh Farahmandpour will appear in court on August 21 to stand an open trial at Branch 1410 of Tehran's Public Court, presided over by Judge Saeid Mortazavi.

Publication of the weekly was suspended in late July following a complaint lodged by the public prosecutor against the managing editor of the periodical.

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