Khatami expresses support to jailed Tehran mayor

Khatami expresses support to jailed Tehran mayor

TEHRAN (Agencies): Iran's moderate President Mohammad Khatami
has joined the groundswell of support for jailed former Tehran
mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi, the press reported on Sunday.

"Karbaschi has rendered much service to the country... we
regret that we are deprived of his services for the time being,"
Khatami told Karbaschi's wife in a telephone conversation on
Saturday.

Khatami also praised Karbaschi's revolutionary record against
the shah's regime before 1979 and said he hoped the 45-year-old
former cleric would "emerge from the present test with honors."

Karbaschi began serving a two-year jail sentence for
corruption and misuse of public funds on Thursday despite last-
ditch efforts by supporters to stop him going to jail.

His trial was widely seen among moderates as a politically-
motivated attack by conservatives and hardliners against the
reformist agenda pursued by Khatami since he took office in
August 1997.

Former president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, still a powerful
figure as the top advisor to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, also sent a letter to Karbaschi expressing his "regret"
over the case.

And Rafsanjani's daughter, the moderate MP Faezeh Hashemi,
raised hopes that her father could step in to help Karbaschi, who
was appointed by Rafsanjani himself in 1989 to restore a city
devastated by years of war and neglect.

"Karbaschi is one of the government's successful managers
known as a symbol of productivity in Tehran and we can expect
Rafsanjani to intervene in his case," Hashemi told moderate
newspaper Sobh-e-Emrouz.

"We can not say that Rafsanjani has not defended Karbaschi ...
Rafsanjani believes in operating behind curtains so that his
efforts can be realized," she added.

Some 149 government officials and MPs have also sent a letter
to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei asking him to pardon
Karbaschi, according to Salam newspaper.

Karbaschi's lawyer Bahman Keshavarz said on Saturday he
expected a review of the verdict and expressed hope his client
would not remain in prison "for even two months."

But Entekhab newspaper quoted the judge in charge of retrials
on Sunday as saying the chances of a review were "very slim."

Meanwhile, Iranian fundamentalists disrupted a demonstration
by moderate students on Sunday over the jailing of a liberal
cleric accused of spreading propaganda hostile to the Islamic
regime.

Around 700 students gathered at Tehran university to call for
the release of Mohsen Kadivar, a leading light of the reform
movement in Iran who began an 18-month jail term last month.

But scuffles broke out when around 40 militant fundamentalists
turned up, shouting "death to Kadivar" and "Kadivar must be
executed."

Police were not allowed to enter the university grounds but
arrested several people from both groups as they left the campus.

The students, from Iran's biggest moderate university
movement, rallied inside the university gates in support of
Kadivar, jailed last month after questioning the conservative
establishment's interpretation of clerical authority under Islam.
"Arrest us, too. We think like Kadivar," read one placard.

The students said earlier they would rally outside the gates.
However, officials were reported to have denied their application
for a permit, forcing them to remain on campus.

Organizers said the protest was planned to stretch into the
late afternoon.

Kadivar, an outspoken mid-ranking Shi'ite Moslem cleric, has
angered traditionalists with lectures and articles stressing
limits on clerical power over Iran's political system. He was
sentenced to 18 months in jail by a special court dealing with
offenses by clerics.

His supporters say his arrest and conviction were designed to
stifle free speech and block fresh interpretations of Shi'ite
political thought. They say the court had no jurisdiction over
"thought crimes".

But Iran's conservative judiciary chief recently denied there
were political motives behind the case.