Iran Clerics Crack Down
Iran's powerful Muslim clerics, stung by the overwhelming 70 percent victory of reform candidates in elections ten weeks ago, are responding with a harsh crackdown on dissent, CBS News Correspondent Tom Fenton reports.
The country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has publicly given a green light for an assault on the reformist press. Other clergymen have called on their followers to kill liberal commentators.
Leaflets are being discreetly distributed in Tehran warning of a campaign of terror and a possible coup d'etat planned by a "crisis committee" run by some commanders of the security forces and elements of the state radio and television.
The judiciary's press clampdown came after newspapers started asking questions about the "crisis committee."
Crisis Committee or no, Iranian expert Hazhir Teimourian said the signs of a power struggle are everywhere.
"It looks to me like a coup except that it's not military so far," he said.
The clerics have closed most of the country's liberal newspapers, and supporters of the hard-liners tried to assassinate a crusading journalist. Suspects in the shooting are now on trial, though many feel they will never be convicted. The courts, like the police and armed forces, are still in the hands of the hard-liners.
The hard-line judiciary shut down the last two major national newspapers from the reformist camp Thursday, bringing to 16 the number of publications banned this week.
The two newspapers, including a leading daily published by a brother of President Mohammad Khatami, were the last hit in a wave of closures that began Sunday.
Most young people, though, are still demanding change. There was a student demonstration in the capital Friday that turned violent, although so far most demonstrations have been peaceful.
Reformers fear the hardliners are just waiting for an excuse to crack down harder. Those fears are shared by the Iranian community abroad.
Professor Haleh Afshar, an Iranian exile who has received dozens of messages from friends in Iran who fear they are about to be jailed as spies, said, "what absolutely terrifies me is that there is suddenly a closing down and everybody is being accused of disloyalty to the nation."
"There's a whole lot of people who are really afraid for their lives," Afshar adds. Her advice to friends back home, at this point, is to stay calm and try not to provoke the authorities.
Khatami has called for calm in the face of the brewing crisis.
"In times of social crisis or tension, everyone should act with wisdom and self-control and work toward curbing tension and defending the interests of society within the framework of laws while...remaining faithful to principles," state television quoted Khatami as saying Thursday.
"Those...who want to act in today's world without respecting the people and the popular will are mistaken," Khatami told members of the reformist-ominated Tehran city council.
Tehran's justice department, controlled by the clerical establishment, said Thursday the original newspaper bans were in response to articles that "disparaged Islam and the religious elements of the Islamic revolution."
The judicial body defended the crackdown and criticized the Culture Ministry, responsible for the once-flourishing press, for not taking action against the newspapers itself.
"If the ministry had performed its duties...the judiciary would not have been forced to take legal action in order to defend religious principles," it said in a statement.
The Culture Ministry, which is loyal to President Khatami, said earlier this week the press closures were unlawful and called for an immediate lifting of the press bans.