TEHRAN A bill to investigate the recent riots at the southern city of Khorramabad was approved yesterday by the Majlis Commission of National Security and Foreign Policy.
Already signed by four parliamentarians, Ali Tajernia, Ahmad Shirzadi, Reza Yusefian and Meysam Saeidi, the bill will be reviewed on Tuesday.
In a letter to Majlis Speaker Mahdi Karrubi, the head of the commission said that a majority of the commission agree with the bill, which is to investigate the reasons of the Khorramabad riots.
Meanwhile, Majlis Vice Speaker Mohammad-Reza Khatami branded the recent disturbing incidents in Khorramabad as alarming, saying, "the lawbreakers in Khorramabad challenged the might of the system and this is a heavy crime." Speaking on Sunday on behalf of Majlis speaker, who has just returned from New York where he attended a conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the vice speaker expressed hope that Khorramabad incident would serve as a lesson to all for conducting their duties in a proper and better manner.
"These incidents show that although officials from various factions endorse the call for abiding by the law and all factions are committed to it, still there is a group of insurgents and lawbreakers who will not allow the society to turn on the pivot of the law, but instead try to impose their principles on society." The Khorramabad incident began when two leading intellectuals Dr. Abdulkarim Soroush and Hojjatoleslam Mohsen Kadivar were blocked from entering the city to address a conference sponsored by the Office for Consolidation of Unity (OCU), the largest pro-Khatami student group.
The disputes touched off days of violence that left one policeman dead and dozens of people injured, including students and police officers.
In another development, in a letter to President Khatami on Sunday, over 184 parliamentarians reiterated their support for the need to draft effective bills to meet the people's grievances.
Read aloud at the end of the Parliament's open session by a member of the Presiding Board, the letter alluded to the grave importance of the strategy of sustainable development.
It also decried the lack of necessary laws in delineating effective measures for carrying out development plans.
The MPs further called on President Khatami to take steps to ensure that an effective bill is put forward and implemented.
Some of the issues referred to in the letter include: devising population control programs and energy conservation measures to substitute for fossil fuels with renewable sources of energy as well as other types of energy, preventing brain-drain, promoting investment security, development of joint production concerns instead of foreign representative offices, and encouraging long-term planning in public organizations instead of myopic, short-term outlooks.