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TEHRAN - A leading Iranian conservative said on Monday his faction was not concerned about a possible low turnout in elections for a powerful state body later this week.
"If the number of participants shows an increase proportionate to the population growth since the last elections, then elections will have been successful," parliament deputy Mohammad Reza Bahonar told a news conference.
Bahonar said a lower turnout in Friday's elections to the Assembly of Experts, which names and can dismiss Iran's supreme leader, compared to presidential or parliamentary elections would be justified because the importance of the Assembly was not self-evident to the people.
"The Assembly holds sessions only once a year and for just one week," Bahonar said. "Its commissions do not have open activities, so people do not feel a daily need for it."
Nevertheless, Iran's conservatives have launched a major political and media campaign to encourage people to vote as a sign of continued support for Iran's Islamic government.
Officials say about 39 million Iranians aged 15 and over are eligible to vote in the elections to the 86-seat Assembly.
Taking "Civil Society" and "Political Development" Slogans Too Seriously, Reuters, October 19
TEHRAN - The director of a banned Iranian newspaper, who was released after a month in prison, said he had been held in solitary confinement and not told of the charges against him, a weekly magazine reported.
"Indirect psychological torture during 27 days through solitary confinement...cannot be justified by any civil, legal or religious principles," Hamid Reza Jalaeipour, freed on bail last week, told the latest issue of the weekly Aban.
Jalaeipour was arrested together with three colleagues in mid-September after an Islamic revolutionary court charged them with acting against Iran's security and closed their newspaper, Tous.
Jaleipour said he had not been told on what charges and on what legal grounds he and the others had been arrested.
"Our biggest sin was to have taken seriously calls for 'boosting civil bodies' and 'political development'," he said, referring to promises made by President Mohammad Khatami.
Jalaeipour's case drew particular attention in Iran because of his impeccable revolutionary credentials as a veteran Islamic activist.
Is Tehran's Former Meyer Making A Deal?, Reuters, October 19
TEHRAN - … Gholamhossein Karbaschi, at the epicenter of the country's political struggle, criticized his leftist Islamist allies for dropping out of the race for the 86-seat Assembly of Experts, an obscure but potentially powerful body, saying they had surrendered the field to their hardline rivals.
Karbaschi, who as mayor of Tehran provided vital logistical support to Khatami's surprise landslide victory last year, was convicted in July of graft in what many analysts saw as a show-trial by the conservative judiciary.
His public endorsement of the Assembly polls, in which the right enjoys considerable advantages, has rehabilitated him in the hardline press from convicted felon to responsible political leader.
Karbaschi denies any deal to exchange his party's participation for an acquittal on appeal. But he admits the election campaign has done much for his standing among former critics.
"I think our constitution is a very good one and if implemented we will need no correction. But everyone, including the Assembly of Experts and the supreme leader, must act in accordance with the constitution,' he said.
Rivals Square Off Ahead of Iran Polls,
Reuter, October 18
TEHRAN - Opposing political factions took their differences to a Tehran park on Sunday, less than one week before an election for a powerful state body that can appoint and dismiss Iran's supreme leader.
About 1,500 Islamic leftist students held a rally in Tehran's Laleh park in protest against the rejection by a conservative oversight board of a large number of candidates for the October 23 elections to the Assembly of Experts.
About 40 hardliners showed up after a speech given by Heshmatollah Tabarzadi, the leader of the student group, but there were only verbal exchanges between the two camps.