SOURCE: CNET News.com

An Iranian cleric turns blogger for reform

Published: January 16, 2005, 7:50 PM PST - By Nazila Fathi

Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a vice president of Iran until his resignation last fall in protest against the new hard-line Parliament, is that rare reformist who has kept alive the movement's promise for open communications with the public.

For more than a year, Abtahi, a midranking cleric who has been a close ally and confidant of President Mohammad Khatami, has kept a Web log to share his views and reach out to others who use the Internet.

Abtahi spends much of his time in his office in the heart of an affluent neighborhood in northern Tehran chatting electronically with young secular men and women who sometimes sarcastically question his sincerity.

Iran's reformists have lost much of the support of Iran's youth, who are impatient for change and who contend that Khatami and his allies achieved too little in the way of a more open society when they controlled Parliament. The reformists lost control of Parliament last year after hard-line officials disqualified most of their candidates and many disgruntled voters stayed away from the polls.

We must not trust this cleric," wrote one of the people who have visited the popular Internet chat room Orkut. "He is just one of them and wants to fool us again."

But Abtahi persists. He has expressed sympathy with the critics' frustration over...

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