Gholamhossein Karbaschi
| Gholamhossein Karbaschi | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| 50th Mayor of Tehran | |
|
In office January 1990 – March 1998 |
|
| Preceded by | Morteza Tabatabaei |
| Succeeded by | Morteza Alviri |
| Governor of Isfahan Province | |
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In office 14 February 1983 – 7 January 1990 |
|
| President | Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani |
| Preceded by | Mohammad-Reza Vaqefi |
| Succeeded by | Abdollah Koupayi |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
23 August 1954 Qom, Iran |
| Political party | Executives of Construction Party |
| Alma mater | Tarbiat Modares University |
| Religion | Islam |
Gholamhossein Karbaschi (Persian: غلامحسین کرباسچی, born 23 August 1954) is an Iranian politician who was the Mayor of Tehran from 1990 until 1998. He is considered politically reformist and is a close ally of former president Mohammad Khatami. He was arrested, tried convicted and imprisoned on corruption charges in what the New York Times claimed "was widely seen among moderates as a politically motivated attack" by the government's conservatives and hard-liners to thwart President Mohammad Khatami's reformist agenda. He is currently General Secretary of Executives of Construction Party.
Karbaschi was trained as a cleric in the holy city of Qom and spent time in Evin prison for his political activities before the Islamic Revolution. He earned a degree in architecture and in civil engineering in Italy.
Karbaschi was a driving force for many new modernization efforts. As the Mayor of Tehran he was known for having bulldozed apartment buildings and office buildings built without city approval, removed revolutionary graffiti from walls, planted thousands of trees, banned much of the private traffic in central Tehran and opened more than a hundred parks. Karbaschi also angered bazaar merchants by raising taxes and contributing to the city's soaring real estate prices, earning him the reputation during his time as mayor of "the most loved and hated man in Tehran." He started the first Iranian full colour newspaper, Hamshahri when he was the mayor of Tehran.
Karbaschi was one of the key supporters of President Mohammad Khatami's first presidential election campaign which led to Khatami's landslide victory (1997). After Khatami's victory, a power struggle started within the political establishment of Iran between the reformists and conservatives of the Iranian government. Karbaschi's arrest in April 1998 prompted thousands of student demonstrators to clash with riot police, and the Interior Minister (who was later arrested for sacrilege) to complain that he had not been informed of the arrest despite the fact that Karbaschi was a member of the president's cabinet in addition to being mayor of Iran's capital and largest city.
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Wikipedia