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TEHRAN - Iran's former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Friday called recent political tension over the imprisonment of the mayor of Tehran a bitter episode and said the notion of widespread corruption had turned young people against the revolution.
The Shi'ite Moslem clergyman, still an influential figure in Iran, said in a Friday prayer sermon the country's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had calmed turmoil by ordering the release from jail of mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi.
Karbaschi's arrest had become the focal point of a power struggle between Khatami's allies and backers of conservatives he defeated at the May 1997 polls.
The dispute spilled onto the streets when riot police clashed with about 2,000 students outside Tehran University, and hard-line activists disrupted a pro-Karbaschi meeting at the Interior Ministry.
"This was the latest example of the leadership's wisdom... he calmed a turmoil that was being made by foreign elements and sworn enemies of the revolution and some unaware friends," Rafsanjani said in his.
"The recent disputes were a bitter episode...I don't want to support or accuse anyone. These opposing factions are both members of the revolutionary family."
"If the charges prove to be wrong, who is to answer? Who is to absorb the many people, including the youth, who have become pessimistic towards the revolution by the notion that there is widespread corruption in the country? How will you answer God? Who are you serving?" the former president said.
"Be fair. If such a widespread corruption exists, how are you going to mend it? Shouldn't you expect a bleaker future?" Rafsanjani told the congregation.
Top Iranian Scolds Conservatives, The
New York Times, April 18
CAIRO, Egypt -- In unusually direct remarks, one of Iran's most influential leaders warned Friday that corruption allegations against the mayor of Tehran had poisoned the country's political environment and posed a risk to its health.
The official, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, said he believed that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had averted further turmoil by ordering the mayor's release from prison earlier this week...
Rafsanjani did not spell out Friday exactly what he feared might have resulted had Karabaschi been kept in jail. But he said without elaboration: "If the leader had not intervened in this issue, in which he solved a part of it, we should have expected other consequences..."
Even during the Friday Prayers, there were indications of continuing tension, as supporters and opponents of Karabaschi exchanged chants, something not usually heard in such circumstances. A reporter who attended the session said that the shouts became so noisy that Rafsanjani had to cut short his remarks before he was able to finish...
He said that Iranians had become forgetful,
too, of the dangers of sending political leaders to prison...
Parliament Speaker Calls for Mayor’s Trial, Praises Khamenei for "Saving the Boat", Agence France Presse, April 19
TEHRAN - As Tehran’s mayor Gholam Hossein Karbaschi returned to work, parliamentary speaker Ali Akbar Nateq-Nuri repeated his call for a trial for Karbaschi, who was arrested on April 4 on charges of "embezzlement and diversion of public funds" but freed on Wednesday.
There should still be "a trial and a fair verdict," Nateq-Nuri, the leader of the conservative faction, told parliament.
"I hope that the judiciary will proceed with this case in court with calm and away from any tension, based on justice and equity."
Nateq-Nuri paid tribute to the role played in the crisis by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who ordered Karbaschi’s release.
"Like a good navigator, the guide intervened at the right time to get through the storm and save the boat," said Nateq-Nuri. He accused Western media of deliberately stirring up the crisis.
German MP to Visit Iran: Press, Agence
France Presse, April 19
TEHRAN - A German parliamentarian is scheduled to visit Iran Monday to discuss the fate of a German businessman sentenced to death here for having sex with an Iranian Moslem woman, a newspaper reported Sunday.
Guenter Verheugen of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) "is to hold talks with Iranian officials on the case of Helmut Hofer," the English-language Iran News said.
Two other German MPs have already visited Iran in the past months, but no progress has been reported on Hofer’s case.
German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel said at the end of March that he planned to personally pursue the case, but Iranian officials have vowed they would not allow foreign intervention in a "judicial case."