[FREE IRAN Project] In The Spirit Of Cyrus The Great

[Rasker]

Iran va Jahan
http://www.iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news_en.pl?l=en&y=2005&m=06&d=08&a=3

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Reformist Candidate Teams Up with Banned Group


June 08, 2005
AFP
Borneo Bulletin


TEHRAN -- The main reformist candidate standing in Iran's presidential election, Mostafa Moin, radicalised his campaign Monday by signing a pact with a banned liberal group that challenges some of the foundations of the Islamic regime.

Under the deal, the Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF) agreed to join forces with the Iran Freedom Movement (IFM) - a group that challenges the regime's mix of religion and politics.

A close aide to Moin, Issa Saharkhiz, said the two groups had formed a "Front for Democracy and Human Rights".

"This front has been formed after several months of discussions with the religious-nationalist opposition," he told AFP, the day after Moin held a final round of talks with IFM dissident leader Ibrahim Yazdi.

Yazdi is facing charges of seeking to overthrow the Islamic regime and was barred from standing in the election. However an alliance with the IIPF, based on the premise that they agree to work within the ideological confines of the regime, could bring the party back into the mainstream.

Yazdi was a close aide to Iran's revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini during his final year in exile in 1978 in France, and served as foreign minister in the provisional government of Mehdi Bazargan.

The Iran Freedom Movement, founded in the 1960s by Bazargan, is now banned in Iran because it questions certain principles of the Islamic republic. However the group remains active, even if three of its top members - Reza Alijani, Hoda Saber and Taghi Rahmani - have been behind bars since 2003.

The alliance comes after Moin has already been flirting with Iran's so-called "red lines" - notably by questioning the powers of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and calling for a resumption of talks with the United States.

Meanwhile, the campaign of frontrunner Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has complained of being targetted by arsonists and gangs spraying graffiti.

Rahman Ranjbar, spokesman for a group of parties backing the comeback attempt of Iran's former president, said groups of men in civilian clothes and on motorbikes set fire to some 50 banners and posters at a party office in the capital.

They also sprayed graffiti, saying "Hashemi: NO".

"Identical attacks took place in the cities of Semnan and Qazvin, and the provinces of Khorassan, West Azerbaijan and Sistan-Baluchestan," Ranjbar said.

No confirmation of the attacks was immediately available but anti-Rafsanjani graffiti has been seen across Tehran.

link to original article
_________________
The Sun Is Rising In The West!Soon It Will Shine on All of Iran!