Hardliners break up rally by reformed US hostage-taker
TEHRAN, Feb 9 (AFP) - Hardliners chanting anti-US slogans broke up a
rally organized by a former US hostage-taker turned leading supporter of
improved relations with the United States, his newspaper reported Tuesday.
More than a dozen fundamentalists attacked Abbas Abdi, now the editor
of the left-wing daily Salaam, as he prepared to address the rally in the
Mohammadieh Mosque in the holy city of Qom, the paper reported.
Intervention by his supporters prevented Abdi being hurt, his paper
said, but the security forces took no action against the hardliners when
they intervened to stop the disturbances.
A member of the committee which planned the seizure of the US embassy
here in November 1979, Abdi is now a leading supporter of reformist President
Mohammad Khatami and his calls for a "dialogue" between Islamic
and Western civilizations.
Abdi has been a particular target for hardliners since he met US diplomat
and former hostage Barry Rosen in Paris last July.
Radical left-wingers made common cause with moderates to back Khatami
to his shock election victory in May 1997.
Abdi's paper is managed by Hojatoleslam Mohammad Khoenia, who was a
spokesman for the students who held 52 US embassy staff hostage for 444
days sparking Washington to break off diplomatic relations in 1980.
Khatami's government has sought to "crack open the wall of mistrust"
with the United States, but has met with resistance from conservatives
and hardliners here.
Also see:
* Reuters: U.S.
embassy occupiers are Iran's new ``liberals''
* Reuters: Montazeri
calls for studying re-establishing U.S. ties
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