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Female MP Slams Iran's Judiciary for Colleague's Jail Term
TEHRAN,
Aug 21 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A female MP on Tuesday slammed a court decision imposing a 22-month jail term on a female colleague on various charges including "endangering the Islamic establishment", news agencies reported.
"I attended the trial of [Fatemeh] Haqiqatjou. To me, Mr. [Judge] Saeed Mortazavi is not competent to hear the case," Fatemeh Rake'ie, the head of the women's faction in parliament, was quoted by the official Iranian News Agency, IRNA, as telling chamber deputies.
"I am proud of Haqiqatjou," she added.
Fatemeh Haqiqatjou, on Monday, was sentenced by Branch 1410 of the Tehran General Court to serve a 22-month prison term after being convicted on a battery of serious charges.
She was found guilty of "misinterpreting certain words uttered by the late Imam [Ayatollah] Khomeini, of waging propaganda against the Islamic system and its founding principles, insulting members of the Guardian Council and uttering insults against the head of the Tehran Revolutionary Court."
The verdict came amid a tug-of-war between the conservative-dominated courts and the reform-majority parliament, currently debating President Mohammad Khatami's new cabinet, and in theory is guaranteed immunity by the constitution.
The secretary of the preliminary court, presided by Judge Mortazavi, on Sunday handed Haqiqatjou's sixteen-page verdict to her.
As a sign of protest, Rake'ie said: "We [female MPs] will leave the chamber and will not return until the issue is resolved," IRNA reported.
Majlis speaker, Mehdi Karroubi, however, persuaded them to stay.
"Unfortunately, we are living in a society where one conservative allows himself to say that reformers are impure, and no one is reacting," Rake'ie said, quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP), in an apparent allusion to recent remarks made by a top conservative cleric over the "impurity" of some reformists.
In March, a hardline court arrested Haqiqatjou, but freed her hours later after parliamentary leaders intervened. She was arrested because of her fiery defense of the violent arrest in February of Dawoodi Mohajer who was freed in March after posting a 300-million-rial bail.
Haqiqatjou denounced Mohajer's violent arrest, calling it "reprehensible" and a "violation of her right to privacy" guaranteed under the laws of the state.
"The head of Tehran's Revolutionary Court, Ali Mobasheri, has complained against me over my parliamentary address on the arrest of pro-reform journalist, Fariba Dawoodi Mohajer," Haqiqatjou told IRNA.
The verdict on Haqiqatjou comes amid a drawn-out debate being conducted by members of parliament since Sunday to decide on ministers to form Khatami's new government.
"What are we doing here if we cannot speak before parliament?" AFP quoted MP Rajab-Ali Mazroui as saying, in a first reaction to the verdict.
In the past 12 months, the Judiciary has summoned at least 30 MPs, with many others reprimanded for making official or personal denunciations in the halls of the chamber.
Haqiqatjou is the third MP ordered jailed by Tehran public courts. Two reformist MPs were earlier sentenced to jail terms, IRNA said.
Issa Mousavinejad was meted a one-year jail term for his role in the student unrest in Khorramabad, and Hossein Loqmanian was sentenced to 13 months in jail for "libeling and slandering Iran's judicial system" in a parliamentary speech, but the verdict is now on appeal.
Their colleagues in parliament have almost unanimously denounced the verdicts, saying in the Iranian constitution, as well as those all over the world, legislators enjoy immunity from speech.
In addition, over 40 pro-reform newspapers have been ordered closed since the judiciary's crackdown on the press that began in April last year.
Nonetheless, the ban on the Hambastegi daily has been "temporarily lifted", Tehran Province Justice Department announced Monday, following the admittance of the managing editor and editorial board of the daily of having made "mistakes", IRNA said.
Judicial authorities lifted the ban after the paper's director, MP Gholamheydar Ibrahim Bai-Salami, underlined that the "mistakes and insulting articles' in his daily had not been published 'deliberately'", the report said.
Tehran's press tribunal ordered the suspension of the Hambastegi daily on August 8th after receiving several complaints.
Meanwhile, two Iranian nationalist opposition members, jailed since March along with some 60 others, were freed Tuesday on bail, according to a statement from Tehran's revolutionary tribunal, AFP reported.
It said Mohammad Omrani and Hossein Rafii, two members of the banned Iran Freedom Movement (IFM) were released.
The two men were freed just three days after the public relations department of the revolutionary court said a number of jailed opposition members could soon be freed.
Some 60 nationalists, including many members of the IFM, which had previously been banned but tolerated, have been held since a crackdown in March.
The revolutionary court has issued an arrest warrant for IFM head, Ibrahim Yazdi, who is currently in the United States.
The crackdown on the IFM, which although opposed to the regime, expressed support for reformist President Khatami, came ahead of the June presidential elections.
Khatami, who has seen many of his supporters jailed and pro-reform newspapers closed since reformists gained a majority in parliament in February 2000, won re-election by a landslide 77% majority.
"The people have the right to pose questions, to know, to criticize and to protest," Khatami said, addressing Iran's top political, religious and military personalities in a ceremony following his win.
"Control, criticism and protests constitute an undeniable right of the people," the 57-year-old moderate leader said.
"Our regime is compatible with Islamic and republican values," he said. "That is called religious democracy."
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