Woman joins Iran ballot

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TEHRAN -- Homa Nasseri will be a rarity in Friday's parliamentary election -- a reform-minded woman who has been granted permission by the hard-line Council of Guardians to run for office.

Like thousands of other candidates, Miss Nasseri was originally barred from running by the council, an appointed body of clerics and jurists who vet all political candidates and laws.

But she appealed the ruling, prompting a representative from the council to come to her neighborhood and ask about her.

"They had strange questions," she said. "They wanted to know whether I prayed and whether I dressed modestly."

Apparently satisfied with what it learned, the council reversed its ruling and Miss Nasseri joined with seven other candidates who visit mosques, civic associations and studentgroups under the banner of the Independent Reformists.

There will be few others like them on the ballot Friday. Hundreds of reform candidates -- including many current members of parliament -- have withdrawn their names to protest the banning of like-minded politicians.

More than 100 of the reformist lawmakers yesterday put their names on an extraordinary protest letter accusing the nation's spiritual leader of rigging the election in support of hard-liners.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is generally considered above criticism in the theocratic state, has allowed freedoms to be "trampled," said the letter.