Inside Iran | Terror And Tehran | FRONTLINE

FRONTLINE

Locked in a struggle between repressive religious authority and open democratic reform, Iran finds itself at a historic crossroads. Here's a look at Iran's political system, its reform movement and recent elections, and the legacy of its Islamic revolution.

An overview of the Iranian government and political system.

Five years, five elections, from municipal councils to the presidency. If the results are any indication, the Iranian public has given its endorsement, time and again, to those in Iran who are trying to create a more open and democratic society.

Can Iran resolve the political paradox of a religious democracy? Here are excerpts from FRONTLINE's interviews with New York Times senior writer Elaine Sciolino; the reformist Grand Ayatollah Yusef Saanei; reformist economist Fariborz Raisdana; Iran's ambassador to Canada, Mohammad Ali Mousavi; and Iranian Vice President Massoumeh Ebtekar, a former student revolutionary and one of the highest-ranking women in the Islamic world.

In this excerpt from The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran (2000), the American foreign correspondent Robin Wright returns to Iran in late 1999 to witness the social and political changes taking place on the eve of the historic 2000 parliamentary elections. "Iran launched the new millennium with an election," she writes. "The timing was appropriate, since the stakes were nothing short of the country's identity in the twenty-first century."

An excerpt from Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran (2000), by New York Times reporter Elaine Sciolino, describing an encounter with the director of the martyrs' section of Tehran's Behesht-e Zahra, the biggest cemetary in Iran. "Hamid cursed the authorities in Tehran," Sciolino writes, "for building cultural centers and high-rise apartment complexes instead of better graves for the martyrs and more museums in their honor. He cursed society for forgetting the sacrifices of his generation."

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