A Nation on Trial

Bazargan lectures his mentor, and women march for their rights

The Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, 78, and Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan, 71, had another showdown last week. Following days of equal-rights demonstrations by thousands of angry Iranian women and more secret trials that resulted in summary executions, Bazargan took to the air waves for an hourlong television and radio address that spared no one, least of all Khomeini, the acknowledged leader of the Iranian revolution. The Prime Minister denounced the secret trials as "unreligious and inhuman," charging that they made the new government appear "shameful" to the rest of the world. Describing his sessions in Qum with the Ayatullah, Bazargan said he had told Khomeini, "You are making us desperate. At least you could consult us before you issue orders."

Rather like a schoolmaster dressing down unruly students, Bazargan dismissed the women's demonstrations as a lot of fuss over "a one-word issue" (the chador, or all-enveloping veil), and admonished students to go back to school and factory workers to stop their agitation. In an emotional appeal for a return to national sanity, Bazargan said, "We have passed a number of mountains, but we still have not reached the promised land."

No more than two hours after Bazargan's address, another kangaroo court was in session, and the prisoner was an international figure. The Komiteh, a group of activists around Khomeini who wield more effective power in Iran than the government, brought former Prime Minister Amir Abbas Hoveida from his cell in Qasr prison for a trial before an Islamic revolutionary court. Hoveida, who served as Prime Minister for almost 13 years under the Shah, was by far the most important official of the old regime to stand trial for his life. Ironically, he was jailed by the Shah late last year on charges of corruption, in what was an obvious attempt to mollify the Shah's critics.

Though the trial began after midnight, about 200 members of the "general public" crammed into the small, whitewashed room. Hoveida sat on a chair in front of the court, which consisted of a mullah and two Iranian judges from the now disbanded secular courts. Composed but groggy because he had taken a sleeping pill earlier, Hoveida looked around in amazement and said he had been promised an afternoon session. The presiding judge replied: "Day or night makes no difference, because this is a revolutionary court."

Hoveida, an orchid fancier who once wore a fresh blossom daily in his lapel, apologized to the court for his disheveled appearance, adding quietly, "But of course it wouldn't have made any difference.

These are the only clothes I have." He asked permission to remove a large name card pinned to his chest. The presiding judge agreed, saying, "You don't need an identification tag." The judge then read a 17-point indictment; each of the charges carried the death penalty. They ranged from general corruption to spying for the West and smuggling heroin from France.

But the most chilling and unanswerable accusation suggested a 20th century Inquisition: Hoveida was charged with "entering into battle against God and his emissaries." The court adjourned at 3:30 a.m.; it was one of the few revolutionary trials that had not ended in an immediate death sentence.

Appalled by news of the trial, Bazargan once again journeyed the 80 miles to Khomeini's headquarters in Qum and this time apparently won his point. A Khomeini edict broadcast over national radio from the holy city in effect granted an eleventh-hour reprieve to Hoveida by calling a halt to all trials in Tehran and stopping summary executions throughout the country.

New regulations governing the Islamic revolutionary courts must now be drawn up by the Revolutionary Council, the supreme governing body of the revolution.

Coming in the wake of Bazargan's tough speech, which had won approval from many Iranians yearning for stability, the Ayatullah's edict on the courts almost certainly will enhance the authority of the Prime Minister and his struggling government.

The secret trials, which by last week had resulted in 62 executions, had raised serious doubts about the direction the revolution was taking. In Geneva, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), once among the Shah's sharpest critics, strongly condemned the trials. Said Niall MacDermot, secretary-general of the ICJ:

"It is deplorable that those who overthrew a regime which they rightly criticized for denying fair trials to its prisoners, should now try their suspects under such wholly arbitrary procedures."

The trials were perhaps the most alarming evidence of a harsh and unbend -ing orthodoxy that Khomeini and his Islamic Revolutionary Council apparently wish to impose upon Iran. Probably no group of Iranians would have more to lose in a doctrinaire Islamic republic than the country's large number of educated wom en. Their emancipation began in 1936, when the Shah's father, Reza Shah, decreed the lifting of the veil. In 1963 women got the right to vote, and in 1975 the Family Protection Law not only gave women the right to divorce their husbands but al lowed them to challenge their husbands' divorce actions, a major departure from traditional Islamic practice. Khomeini's revocation of the Family Protection Law, his abolition of coeducational schools, and his diatribe against "naked women" in government offices confirmed the worst fears of many Iranian women, and for the second week they took to the streets by the thousands in protest.

Variously dressed in jeans, high heels and the latest Western fashions (there was hardly a chador in sight), 10,000 to 15,000 women paraded daily in Tehran in the first effective demonstration of opposition to Khomeini. The Ayatullah's lieutenants backed down on the issue of dress. Said Deputy Prime Minister Abbas Amir Entezam last week: "We have merely made suggestions. We have not asked women to wear the chador or any specific clothing." After the government retreated, so did religious extremists who had earlier launched knife-wielding attacks on men cordoning the feminists' line of march. One group of male demonstrators, seeing some women standing at the windows of a Tehran office, exposed themselves, shouting, "You don't want chadors, you want this!"

The revolt of the women gained support from feminists overseas, including Simone de Beauvoir and Kate Millett (Sexual Politics). Though largely unknown to the people she was supporting, Ms. Millett flew to Iran to march with her sisters, and described the Ayatullah as "a male chauvinist." The government responded by threatening to expel her. Elsewhere, feminists in New York, San Francisco, Washington and Paris rallied in support of their Iranian sisters.

The bold resistance displayed by the Iranian women could act as a catalyst for other groups in Iran that may be concerned about civil rights in a fundamentalist Islamic republic. Iran's press, for ex ample, was under pressure from self-appointed religious groups that went from paper to paper outlining how they thought stories should be handled. Deputy Prime Minister Entezam went even further last week when he announced the imposition of censorship on TV film and news pictures by foreign media. Said he: "We can't allow film to be taken that shows the revolution in a bad light." Obviously, Bazar gan's struggle to establish a government that is not only effective but aware of civ il liberties has a long way to go. His successful confrontation with Khomeini last week was at least a step in the right di rection. --

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.