Guardian Council

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami was sworn in for a second term today--three days later than scheduled--after officials settled a dispute between hard-liners and reformers that underscored a potentially explosive struggle for power between the ideological foes. The latest showdown erupted over appointments to the Guardian Council, an oversight panel with authority to nullify any action taken by Iran's Majlis, or parliament.

Iran's constitutional watchdog received approval Tuesday to extend its examination of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed reelection victory beyond today's deadline to Monday, state television reported.

A senior Iranian cleric said Friday that the British Embassy employees arrested in Tehran in recent days would be put on trial on unspecified charges of acting against Iran's national security, a move immediately denounced by members of the European Union. Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of the conservative Guardian Council, said in a Friday prayer sermon that the employees, all of them Iranian nationals, would "definitely be tried."

Hundreds of thousands of Iranian protesters defied authorities Monday and marched to Tehran's Freedom Square, as the Islamic Republic's supreme leader ordered an investigation into allegations of vote fraud, a move the opposition described as little more than an attempt to dampen anger over the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

A high-ranking conservative cleric called for the arrest of the nation's opposition leaders today while a counterpart demanded the release of political prisoners as the nation's political and religious establishment showed no signs of reconciliation following the disputed June 12 reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In addition, many lawmakers and clergy from Ahmadinejad's own conservative political camp fumed over his proposed Cabinet, including his decision to nominate three female ministers.

A senior cleric who is close to Iran's supreme leader said in a Friday sermon that anyone who engaged in violence in protests over alleged fraud in the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad should receive the "severest of punishments," according to state broadcasting. Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a confidant of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, described the unsanctioned public gatherings and rallies as being against Islamic law.

TEHRAN - The run-up to Iran's June presidential election took a dramatic turn Saturday with last-minute candidacy announcements by two controversial political figures: former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, top aide to outgoing incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In the final moments before the five-day registration period expired, Rafsanjani and Mashaei arrived via separate entrances at the Interior Ministry, where all would-be candidates were required to sign up by 6 p.m. Saturday.

President Mohammad Khatami walked out of a meeting of Iran's top arbitration body to protest a decision to hike the budget of a hard-line panel that has stymied his reform efforts, legislators said. The unprecedented action by Khatami took place after the Expediency Council, a largely conservative body that arbitrates disputes between parliament and the Guardian Council, decided to more than double the Guardian Council's budget to $12.5 million to supervise parliamentary elections next year.

President Mohammad Khatami's political party has threatened to boycott Iran's parliamentary elections unless bans on hundreds of aspiring liberal candidates are promptly reversed, newspapers and officials said Monday. The hard-line Guardian Council -- an unelected body with sweeping powers -- last week announced that it had barred more than a third of the 8,200 hopefuls who wanted to run on Feb. 20.

Iran's Islamic watchdog council has rejected a bill passed by parliament to ban the use of torture to gain information from detainees, newspapers reported. The bill sought to outlaw physical and mental abuse, isolation, nighttime interrogations, drugs and denial of attorney visits. The Guardian Council said five articles of the bill were against Islamic law, two were against the constitution and two needed to be clarified, the papers said.