Iran’s President Under Fire for Taking On Hard-Liners

Iranian hard-liners harshly criticized moderate President Mohammad Khatami for accusing them of constitutional violations, saying it was part of a ploy to win reelection next year, newspapers reported Tuesday.

On Sunday, Khatami said that hard-line opponents of his pro-democracy reforms, including the judiciary, were violating the constitution and that he was powerless to stop them. He said the closed-door, no-jury courts that are used to try journalists and political activists were an example of how the constitution was being trampled.

The head of the judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, countered that the constitution should not be misused.

“The constitution should not be employed as a political instrument for factional and party objectives,” Shahroudi told the conservative daily Entekhab. “I call on the president to take new and serious steps to implement articles of the constitution not implemented so far.”

Shahroudi said he was setting up a panel to look into possible constitutional violations.

Entekhab, in a commentary, accused Khatami of seeking to cover up his deficiencies and attract votes in presidential polls, which most likely will be held in May. Earlier this year, Khatami said he would run for reelection, but this month he said he was undecided.

The powers of the presidency are sharply limited by Iranian law, which reserves command of the police and armed forces, as well as control of the judiciary and many other levers of power, for the supreme clerical leader.

The judiciary has closed 30 publications--all but one of them pro-reform newspapers--since it began a press crackdown in April in a bid to roll back social and political reforms.

The official Iranian news agency reported that Iran Javan, a small weekly, was closed Tuesday. The report did not say who issued the order to ban it.