PHOTO: Tehran Friday Prayer leader Ahmad Khatami
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President Rouhani faced more pressure on Friday in the escalating political contest within Iran’s regime, a day after the Supreme Leader appeared to publicly check the President.
Delivering the Tehran Friday Prayer, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami implicitly accused Rouhani by saying that there is no one in Iran who “is compassionate about the Revolution but does not have respect for the rule of law”.
Khatami specifically castigated Rouhani over the President’s attempt to curb the powerful Guardian Council’s role in elections by removing its ability to ban candidates. The cleric said:
Everyone must accept the rule of law, and according to Article 99 in the Constitution, the Guardian Council has supervision over elections for the Assembly of Experts and Parliament….[This includes] the verification and disqualification of candidates.
The battle over the Guardian Council has been spurred by important elections for Parliament and the Assembly of Experts, scheduled for February.
See Iran Daily: Did Supreme Leader Just Step Back from Nuclear Deal?
The Friday Prayer leader made clear that the Supreme Leader’s Thursday speech, dealing the Government a defeat, had ruled that Parliament must be allowed to approve the July 14 nuclear deal with the 5+1 Powers: “This agreement that has created a 15-20 and 25-year commitment for our people must also be accepted by the representatives of the people.”
At the same time, Khatami said that it is “completely legal” for the Supreme National Security Council to “enter this issue”.
The Government has maintained that, while Parliament may issue an advisory opinion, it is the SNSC that has the power of approval. Hardline MPs and critics of the deal have insisted that Parliament formally vote on the agreement.
While carefully choosing his words, Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani moved on Friday towards backing of the vote. He told journalists in New York that a special Parliamentary commission will submit a report to the Majlis, which will then “make a decision” based on it.
Larijani said Parliament would deliver the “final decision” in late September.
The head of the commission, Alireza Zakani, said the Government must send the nuclear agreement to the Majlis in the form of a bill: “We are waiting for the government to present [this] to Parliament, although we will not wait around….It is the proposal or the bill that, we, after a detailed review, will present to the Parliament for a vote.”
Cartoon: 2 More Years in Prison for Student Activist Hedayat
Cartoonist Touka Neyestani comments on the additional two years in prison imposed on student activist Bahareh Hedayat last month:
Hedayat was expected to be freed after serving most of a 9 1/2-year sentence. However, she was summoned by officials at Evin Prison and told she would have to remain because of a two-year suspended term, imposed in 2006 after a student protest, would be put into effect.
A leader of the student organization Daftar-e Tahkim Vahdat, Hedayat was detained amid the protests after the disputed Presidential election of 2009. Her “crime” was to deliver videotaped addresses to audiences in Europe. She was convicted of “acting against national security and publishing falsehood”, “insulting the Supreme Leader”, and “insulting the President”.
