'Iran After the Elections' Conference

The "Iran After the Elections" Conference was a three-day social and cultural conference on reform in Iran organized by the Heinrich Böll Foundation and held in Berlin on April 7 and 8, 2000. The name refers to the Iranian legislative election, 2000. conference was notable less for its proceedings than for the disruption of them by anti-regime Iranian exiles, and for the long prison sentences given to several participants upon their return to Iran.

The conference was held in the wake of a sweeping victory by reformist candidates in the Majlis elections of February 2000, by the Heinrich Boll Institute, "an independent German cultural organisation close to the Green Party." It was attended not only by "reformist intellectuals" from Iran, but by "banned and exiled Iranian political activists." Unfortunately, the organizers did not anticipate the large political gap between the exiles and the more conservative Iranian reformists.

On the second day of the conference, hundreds of Iranians exiles stormed the Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt (House of World Cultures) and "staged protests both against the participants and the political situation in Iran." Shouts of "death to Islamic Republic" and "Mercenaries, go home" prevented the participants from speaking, while according to anti-regime Iran Press Service, "a girl appeared on the main tribune and stripped to almost her last piece except for an Islamic scarf, and later a man climbed on a chair and fully undressed, exhibiting pictures of the clerical leaders of the regime" for the benefit of television viewers in Iran where the conference was being televised. The BBC also reported the protesters "included a man removing his clothes and a woman dancing with bare arms."

Hardline elements in Iran were infuriated by the broadcast of the protests, and following the conference "at least ten" Iranian participants were arrested, tried and sentenced to several years in prison after their return to Iran for crimes such as "insulting the former Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, and disseminating propaganda against the Islamic system."

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Wikipedia