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Iran's Khatami Starts Campaign With Call For Reform
TEHRAN, May 24 (News Agencies) - Iranian President Mohammad Khatami defended his program of liberalizing reforms in his first major campaign appearance ahead of the June 8th presidential polls.
"Reforms can be blocked for a while, but this natural, historical and human desire cannot be halted," Khatami said late Wednesday in a televised answer and question session with students and clerics carried by the state IRNA news agency Thursday.
"Reforms cannot be stopped because they are rooted in our clear and conscious desires," Khatami said, adding that, "the people have shown that they favor reforms. They must take place in all fields, political, economic and cultural."
The cleric, who reluctantly announced his intention for re-election in the upcoming polls two weeks ago, also referred to the age gap between the nation's leaders and the youth who account for some 70% of the population.
"Our world is different from that of the youth's world. Understanding this world and lifting the needs of these youth is extremely important to create an understanding," Khatami said.
"What is important is that we understand these desires for change, (...) and if God forbid we should not be able to answer these calls (...) the result will be that notably our young generation will turn to outside the country," he said.
"Until human beings exist and human thought advances, and until changes occur, and new questions and needs come up, reforms are a definite and necessary duty," Khatami stressed.
"What we cannot overcome is that we have to take freedom seriously and we have to organize our society based on freedom," Khatami said reaffirming that the "main aim of reforms is the establishment of democracy," IRNA said.
The presidential election campaign officially kicked off last Friday, and candidates are beginning to state their views in television slots under rules that ban them from criticizing their rivals.
At least six of the 10 candidates running in the elections are conservatives.
Another candidate, lawyer Mahmud Kashani, 59, pledged late Wednesday to "bring Iranian society out of its present deadlock, remedy the general and worrying sense of disappointment felt by young people and save the economy from disaster."
But he also said the state should guarantee freedom of thought and expression and justice for all, "in a word the strict application of the constitution."
The young had legitimate demands for free access to higher education, employment, housing, healthy entertainment and marriage, he said, while the state had imposed "often excessive restrictions on society, in the arts, cinema and music."
On the economy, he urged less state intervention, calling it the root of all evils.
Khatami swept to office in 1997 with nearly 70% of the popular vote, the maximum allowed under the Iranian constitution, in the face of bitter conservative opposition to his reforms.
"Unfortunately we have so far paid a heavy price for democracy, and there will be more to pay," he said when announcing his candidacy on May 4th.
Khatami has publicly lamented his limited power to stand up to conservatives who control state media, the courts, the police and armed forces, and take their cue from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
He has also seen more than 30 mostly pro-reform newspapers closed by the conservative-led courts, while dozens of his supporters - including student leaders, journalists and others - are in jail or awaiting trial.
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