Iranian youths celebrate Khatami's win

Iranian youths celebrate Khatami's win

By Kathy Evans

TEHRAN: Young Iranians gave out flowers and sweets in Tehran's
Revolution Square Sunday in celebration of the overwhelming
mandate for change given to Mohammed Khatami in his presidential
election victory.

About 29 million people out of a total electorate of 33
million voted last Friday; of those 20 million voted for Khatami.
His nearest rival, Nateq Nouri, the powerful Speaker of
parliament, won 5 million votes, a result which many analysts saw
as a rebuff to the elderly radical clerics of Qom who backed him.

Yet the outgoing president, Hashemi Rafsanjani, denied Sunday
that the huge vote for Khatami could be considered a protest vote
against the system of strict controls which govern social life
and freedom of speech.

"The majority of our young people would like to be compatible
with the values of the revolution and Islamic principles," he
said. Asked if such principles could allow people to read and
entertain freely in their homes, he said: "Some of these requests
are not possible to meet."

However, people were already predicting that the size of
Khatami's vote would embolden young people to reject the system.

"The Khatami vote shows they want change quickly and both
sides could get aggressive. There could be a backlash from the
revolutionary police forces," a psychologist said.

A Tehran mother reported that her eight-year-old returned from
school Sunday saying the girls had spent the morning discussing
when they were going to rip off their headscarves. In Iran, girls
have to wear Islamic cover from the age of nine.

However, as the celebration rallies by students began, police
were active in maintaining dress and behavior codes. In one
incident Sunday night, a woman was seen being stopped in her car
and taken away for wearing make-up.

The apparatus that controls public morals in Iran is huge,
involving thousands of regime loyalists. Private morals are the
domain of the civil police, but other volunteer squads, such as
the Bassij, the force which fought the Iran-Iraq war, are also
involved.

Another prominent force is the Elimination of Vice and
Propagation of Virtue Squad, and its detention center in north
Tehran was busy as usual Sunday. Two mixed parties had been
raided several days ago and in the tiny room which functioned as
a reception, upper-class women dressed in heavy Islamic cover
queued to plead with a scowling police sergeant to allow them to
deliver food parcels to their relatives inside.

"My son, Mohammed, was arrested last Thursday when he went to
a goodbye party for a girl leaving for Dubai. He has been here
since. When he comes out, we are going to do everything to get
him out to Canada," said one woman.

A group of relatives said 40 teenagers had been arrested at
one party. "We haven't had any news of (my son) since Thursday,
when they forced him on to a bus," said a woman wearing a chador.
Usually, families are asked to pay hefty fines to secure the
release of their relatives.

It is unlikely that Khatami will be able, or even want, to
stop such activities by the moral police forces. He has to work
with a parliament dominated by conservatives and also with the
Guardians' Council, a body of traditional rightwing clerics.

Rafsanjani could play a key role in his new post as head of
the Expediency Council, which mediates between parliament and the
Guardians' Council, and advises the Supreme leader, Ayatollah
Khamenei.

-- The Guardian