Talk:Mohammad Khatami

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Contents 1 POV 2 Titles 3 The Great Actor and Dissembler 4 What an Astute Quotation 5 Small Improvements 6 NCR 7 nukes 8 Section on Criticism 9 Hizbullah 10 On Osama Bin Laden? 11 Patchouli edits

[edit] POV

"Khatami has been the only democratic, sincere, and honest leader who never lied to his people" This sounds like a violation of NPOV. 06:25, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. It's also tautological: "The democratic man who believed in democratic principles", "The honest man who never lied.". Although I am reluctant to edit this, since (being a Westerner) my POV is of course highly biassed in his favour, I'll try to reword this a bit. squell 14:49, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

The section During his presidency ... change the historic name of Persian Gulf. isn't exactly NPOV either. Political action of National Geographic? According to Google, this is referring to an atlas in which the Persian Gulf was nicked Arabian Gulf? Iran Daily (pdf). squell 15:06, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

After careful examination of the sections that were tagged as POV by someone a few day ago, I could not find any reason to keep the tag and I removed it. If anyone thinks otherwise, please specify which sentence or phrase exactly you think does not comply with NPOV and discuss it in the talk page to reach consensus before tagging the article again. Barnetj 12:29, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Titles

dear Mustaqbal. I am Arash, an Iranian Anti-Islamic Republic of iran Activist. hope you are doing fine. about Khatami i think to add any title that is official is ok like "his honourable" for tony blair or Ayatolah for Khomeini.(who are both big killers actuallly!) so i think you should again add hujat ol eslam. though myself i know who the hell is khatami and really oppose him but thats his official title.

yours, Arash --Arash red 22:19, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I took your word for it an reverted my edits. However, they were reverted back to the version without "Hujjat al-Islam", because, as I stated previously, wikipedia does not use honorifics. Mustaqbal 10:58, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, this seems to be a dubious case. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies)#Honorific prefixes only seems to have settled this issue for 'popes' and royalty. The discussion on the associated talk page is a too lenghty for me. His style, if significant, probably does belong somewhere (it is informative), but probably it is best to go with the other articles on Iranian figures with same style? Also, isn't Seyyid part of his name? It's also listed on Khomeini and Khamenei. I don't understand Persian so I don't know.

Btw, I think copying/moving this section to Talk:Mohammad Khatami would be helpful. squell 16:17, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmm ok. Seyyid is not part of his name, it is also honorific. It should probably be removed from Khomeini and Khamenei as well. Sayyid: Sayyid is an honorific title often given to descendants of Muhammad. Mustaqbal 08:49, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

dear mustaqbal, no offence but you better increase your information on this. "sayyid" is totally part of his name. for example my father was "sayyid abolfazl" and i (before i remove it myself) used to be "sayyid Arash". "sayyid" is in ID card and passport even! in order to be "sayyid" you just need to have "sayyid" father:))

anyway khatami article need more serious revising than this titles. to be honest i dont really care if you put or not put "hujat ol eslam" but "sayyid" is definetly part of name in iran.

thanks for your reply. --Arash red 09:16, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm only going by what the article Sayyid clearly states, that Sayyid is an honorific title. I'll add it back to the English and Farsi text however. Mustaqbal 12:54, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

If Seyyid compares to "Sir" in English (perhaps more tightly integrated with a name), that means it is perfectly acceptable. But what exactly does Hojjat ol eslam mean? If it is a title (such as "Bishop" or "Ayatollah", as opposed to "His Supreme Gracefulness" or whatever), I see no reason to exclude it. I invite someone to click on the red link and start an article on it. This is not the first time people have wondered about it. squell 16:02, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Great Actor and Dissembler

There is absolutely no way for a true proponent of democracy to become the President of Iran — the chances of the mending of a broken glass is higher. Mohammad Khatami is like all government officials of the Islamic Republic except that he is chummy. He must have enjoyed the salary and perquisites, of course. --66.81.17.227 04:32, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

As the Persian saying goes, you're obviously one of those people that "kenaare howz neshasteh va mige lengesh kon" [this roughly means that one is standing on the sidelines and is saying do it]. I don't know you but i can guess you're either an Iranian that hasn't lived inside the country for more than a decade or you're not an Iranian and therefore not familiar with the complex political situation in present-day Iran. Your opinion I believe is the result of an over-simplified view of Iranian politics. Anyway ..... one may argue that Khatami failed at carrying out his promises as a president. But it is truely unfair to say that Khatami was not a sincere and honest person. It is unfair to even compare him to any of the other hypocrites in high offices of power in Iran. If you had lived in Iran, if you knew Iran, you would never judge him that way. He won the hearts of tens of millions of Iranians, because he gave them the respect that was taken from them for so long, he never lied to the people. During his 8 years in office, he was arguably the most "publicly insulted" head of government in the history of Iran, because in a country where it's usually done in a blink of an eye, he never allowed for a single person to be arrested for "insulting the president". He proved time and again that he truly believes in freedom of expression, tolerance for opposition, rule of law and democracy. He has shown in practice that he is not interested in power, he was the first Iranian President that did not seek any power in the regime after his term ended (a customary way to go in this country), as a matter of fact he was in a hurry to retire himself from government service to start leading an NGO only dedicated to the progress of human well being in the world. Even today, having failed to realize the dreams of his supporters, people love him as a person which has always had honorable and noble intentions. Many are angry at him and call him a "failure", but you never hear people calling him a "thief", a "dictator" or a "murderer" like the others (if you are an Iranian, you know exactly which ones I mean). Look at the ones before him (Mr. Rafsanjani, Mr. Khamenei, ...) and the one after him (Mr. Ahmadinejad) and all the other people in high offices of power in Iran. Look at their words and their deeds and tell me if you are not ashamed to dishonor Khatami's character by comparing him to those people.

• So long as the mullahs are in power, no Iranian President can do anything lest he ends up like Banisadr and Rajai. Hypothetically speaking, if Ahmadinejad even wanted to bring religious and political freedom, he would fear the Assembly of Experts, Council of Guardians, and Supreme Leader. There can never be a democratic republic under Islamic laws in the same way that the supernatural do not jibe with physical laws of the universe.

--66.81.192.28 11:43, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What an Astute Quotation

"The Nobel Peace Prize is not very important, the ones that count are the scientific and literary prizes," he added.

This quotation makes it clear that he is in touch with reality.

Or perhaps he simply has different views than you? 69.95.39.34 00:51, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Interesting, but not exactly NPOV. It does embellish his stated enthusiasm for cultural and scientific endeavour.

[edit] Small Improvements

I went over the "Chocolate Robe" section and removed the notice asking for improvements. I also re-organized the sections to put the awards and publications at the end, which seemed correct to me. I made a few very minor improvements elsewhere. Hopefully people will like my changes, if not... you can always revert! Good luck! --Brianyoumans 07:34, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NCR

for those readers who are not aware, it must be pointed out that the organization called NCR (National Council of Resistance) also known as PMOI (People's Mujahedin Of Iran) also known as the MKO (Mojahedin Khalq Organization), is an armed terrorist group opposed to the current Iranian regime. the group was originally a hardline Islamist group which played an important role in the establishmest of the Islamic Republic but was later turned into an opposition group. this organization has conducted numerous assassinations of civilian, political and military figures in Iran, including detonating bombs, etc. etc. This organization is officially designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. To read more about them see the article People's Mujahedin of Iran.

THEREFORE: This organization is most definitely not a reliable source of information to count on, for creating a whole section called "massacre of prisoners" in the article about a respected international personality like Mr. Khatami.

[edit] nukes

the article has no mention of the nuclear program instituted under Khatami.

"During the period of time he was in office, from 1997 to 2005, Khatami presided over Iran’s secret nuclear program. Currently, the Iranian Government under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is snubbing the international community’s request to cease nuclear weapons production." [1]

iran's nuclear program was started years ago, under president hashemi rafsanjani. even the source you have mentioned says that khatami presided over the program as the president of the country, from 1997 to 2005, it doesn't say that he started the program. however more importantly, i must emphasize that the nuclear program has very little to do with *any* specific president in iran. it is most directly overseen by the supreme leader and the national security council (a council whose chairman is the president, but that's a formality, it's secretary and all it's major figures are appointed by the leader) and the program is considered to be one of the "general policies of the state" (in persian: siyaasathaaye kolliye nezaam), which is independent from the executive branch (i.e. the president).

p.s. to make it clear, iran's nuclear program started before the revolution (more than 30 years ago) one part of which was the bushehr nuclear power plant. but the "secret" program because of international embargos, was started under president hamshemi rafsanjani.

Plus, Romney's statement contradicts what the Wikipedia has already said about Iran's nuclear programme. [2] The nuclear sites of Khatami's time was deemed acceptable by the IAEA, so if we were to include Romney criticism in any way, we should state that.--Cat Constantine 13:24, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

This is why the Middle East will never have peace. Guys like him. Idiots are taking over the area! Poor fools are following the idiots. Why don't we bomb Iran and get it over with. People will die but it is for the better good. --66.218.18.121 02:07, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Not exactly relevant. Or even coherent. I think you mean the greater good, as well

[edit] Section on Criticism

In light of criticism made by the Simon Wiesenthal Center [3] and Gov. Mitt Romney [4], how would any of you feel about having a section on criticism? If so, how do you should we handle any inaccuracies in the criticism made against Khatami? I ask this because Romney, for one, has been criticising Khatami for actions of the Guardian Council and rogue elements within his government - such as the nuclear programme, the stifling of human rights, and the murders of dissidents. --Cat Constantine 13:35, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea to create such a section. Inaccuracies in each allegation must be pointed out and explained (if there are any). I for one believe that 90% of the criticisms that are made are due to the fact that the legal position and power of the president in the Iranian political system is not understood correctly by the criticisers. They probably compare the Iranian president to the U.S. president. It must be emphasized that the powers of the president in Iran are much more limited and that he is outranked by the supreme leader. For example the president has absolutely no legal control over the armed forces (police, army, revolutionary guards), state radio and tv, the judiciary and prisons, the expediency council (which has the final say on legislation). Not only that, but even in the areas that are left for the president to excercise his power (for example, legally, he appoints the minister of intelligence) in practice decisions are imposed on him by the supreme leader. It is a known fact in Iran that the person chosen for the intelligence ministry must have the explicit approval of the leader, although that's not written anywhere in the law. If you dig out the newspapers of 1998 (in Iran) you will see that Khatami's aids have said in different interviews that Mr. Younesi (Khatami's second intelligence minister) was Khatami's 14th choice!! (the first 13 were not approved by the leader). Of course Mr.Younesi was "one of the good guys" and made a lot of reforms in the ministry, but that's not the point; Khatami had 13 people in mind before him but wasn't able to pick them. Anyway, i guess i got carried away ... i agree with the idea of a 'criticism' section. Barnetj 14:47, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Great! (And I agree with what you say, Barnetj). I've taken the opportunity to write a short intro to the section - I'm going to sandwich it between the "Chocolate Robe" and "Quotes" sections. It'll need more work over the next few days. BTW, I hope I'm not being presuming by doing that - I'm new. So if I do something wrong, please be kind. :) --Cat Constantine 09:40, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I removed it, some random governor in a foreign country barely counts as relevant when it comes to the assessment of the Iranian President. Kaveh 22:26, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Eh? It should hardly be the importance of the critic that matters, but rather the actual criticism. But yeah, I get the point - I guess that info was probably not all that important.--Cat Constantine 20:31, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I am adding this for the substance of his comments, and I am not concerned about his position. I would add his comments even if were a run-of-the-mill journalist by just stating the news agency.--Patchouli 18:24, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

And I removed it. Find authoritative sources that actually know what they're talking about. Kaveh 05:58, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Oddly enough, I now agree with Kaveh, and I'm removing your latest edit, Patchouli. Please don't be offended. It's just that Romney's criticism is too random, and he hasn't offered any solid facts to back his criticism. And overall - in terms of the life of Khatami - it wasn't an important episode at all. (I myself had suggested creating the criticism section just because Romney's cold shoulder to Khatami had made the news.... but overall, I see now that it's not that important.)--Cat Constantine 10:48, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

• "Only one problem exists. Khatami is neither a reformer nor a democrat. It is true that Khatami beat three other candidates to win the presidency in 1997. But he emerged to victory only after the mullahs disqualified 234 other challengers whom they felt too reformist or too liberal. Khatami has not retracted his 1980 writings in the Iranian daily Keyhan in which he insisted that government was only for the clergy."http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-rubin031802.shtml-07:49, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
• "[Khatami] refused, for example, to back off a previous comparison between the American leader and Osama bin Laden.[5]Video clip of speech--22:59, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
• "Khatami is a symptom and not the cause of change in Iran," [6] according to Azar Nafisi.--11:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Patchouli (talk • contribs).

[edit] Hizbullah

the following note was removed twice from the quotes section. i think it has to be included somewhere in the article to prevent confusion for many readers. what are your thought?

Note: In nearly all Muslim countries of the world, Lebonan's Hizbullah is not considered a terrorist organization; rather the governments officially recognize the militia as a legitimate national freedom-fighting organization in Lebonan. For more information about the reason of different viewpoints on the militia, read the article on Hizbullah. Many westerners which are unaware of the totally different reputation of the Hizbullah in the Middle East region, (e.g. As opposed to Al-Qaida which is considered a terrorist group all over the world, including in Muslim countries), are surprised and confused by Khatami's statement's on Hizbullah. Barnetj 12:07, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

In many Muslim countries, Lebanon's Hezbollah is not considered a terrorist organization; rather, they officially recognize the militia as a legitimate national organization in Lebanon. For more information about the reason of different viewpoints on the militia, see Hizbullah.

How is that? HawkerTyphoon 12:27, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and keep it out. No need for commentary, or double guessing the Wikipedia audience. Kaveh 22:30, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

• Mohammad Khatami is a terrorist against the Iranian people. Who cares what he says. Mohammad Omar says, "We [Taliban] are all moderates."[7] Listen to the interview for yourself.

Khatami dupes everyone with his "reform". He's been doing it for at least a decade. Nothing changed in Iran. I wish I could do it too: Just say, "I want reform; terrorism is evil," and become popular.--19:12, 12 September 2006 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Patchouli (talk • contribs).

You know that's not true and you also know how silly it is to compare him to the taliban. I myself am one of the people that was(and is) very disappointed with him at the end of his presidency. I thought he could do better, much better. I think he was too afraid of violence so he kept giving in to the hardliners. But at the end of the day I respect him as a noble human being. I think to myself would I have done better than him, if I was in his shoes? How much change can you bring with so little powers to such a powerful and solid establishment, and to people who easily kill their opponents (for one, assassination of saeed hajjarian). Well sure, the easy way to get out would be to resign! You could just say it's tooo difficult, it's undoable, and quit. As you might know Khatmi actually had a reputation of being a quitter, because he resigned when he was the leader's representative in Keyhan newspaper and again when he was the culture minister. But this time Khatami had made his decision. Either he would not come, or he would come to stay. No quitting. No resignations. He chose the difficult path (read the book by Mohammad Dad, called "100 days with Khatami", about the last 100 days before the 1997 elections, you'll find out what I'm talking about) ......... And one more thing. you say nothing changed in Iran? Is that really true or do we, as a nation, have a really bad memory? I was a teenager when Khatami became president in 1997. Life was *miserable* for me in those days. I would get questioned in the street by the Basij for wearing a t-shirt with pictures on it. Our cars would be searched for music tapes and we would be detained or we would have to beg the Basiji for hours to let us go. There wasn't a restaurant or coffee shop in town where you could relax with your friends, the police and the Basij would enter into the restaurants and look for couples and would detain them if they were unrelated (boyfriends/girlfriends) and would violently warn girls or women that were wearing colorful scarfs or had too much makeup on. When Mr. Khamenei, the supreme leader, went on a tour of a city in Iran, the TV would show him sitting on a high chair, and a crowd of people that were standing in lines to kiss his hands, women would kiss his hands after he placed a piece of cloth on it (so god forbid they would touch) and men withou the cloth. All of this my friend, was not long ago! It's been barely 10 years. But we forget so quickly. Some of the effects that Khatami had in Iranian politics/culture have been very deep and they have stayed even after his reformist government has been replaced with a hardline one. Barnetj 15:03, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

• Your points are inane. What is the big deal about going to a restaurant, listening to music, and kissing the hand of a mullah when people don't have their four freedoms? By your haystack of words, you have comported yourself like an Internet troll.--00:37, 26 September 2006 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Patchouli (talk • contribs).

I have nothing more to say to you Patchouli. It is obvious that you are here to create a negative image of Khatami, regardless of the facts. And sign your comments please. Barnetj 12:13, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] On Osama Bin Laden?

I removed this Quote because the main/independent clause is missing and therefore it says nothing.

On Osama Bin Laden

• First, because of the crimes he conducts and second because he conducts them in the name of Islam, the religion which is a harbinger of peace and justice.

Blanchette 07:37, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Patchouli edits

I added this talk subsection to discuss irresponsible edits (with a hint of vandalism) that are recently being made by User: Patchouli to this otherwise stable article. Patchouli has added a section to the article called "reform within the islamic framework". There's no problem with the title of the section, but most of the content he is adding under this section is POV, verifiably false statements, unverifiable statements, and include weasel words and misleading use of references. (last version before I tried to make improvements: [8] ) For example the section opens with this sentence:

"Khatami's desire to not make extra-Islamic reforms made people question the purpose of his presidency. He has received criticism inside and outside the Islamic Republic and it is not known how a mullah can bring freedom." This remark is so blatantly POV, that is seems more like vandalism.

Some other remarks under this section are:

".... Many of them [his former supporters] had gotten physically beaten by security forces before the meeting [at Tehran university]" or "Khatami denounced the protesters because of 'their envy' and that they 'created obstacles,' referring to people like Akbar Mohammadi."

and Patchouli has even included a reference for some of these remarks. but when you read the reference you will see that it does not include anything of the like! and that he has twisted the words around and put them in the article. for example, in the latter remark, if you read the source, Khatami is referring to some politicial movements "... with twisted minds, who lust for power, and who ignore the popular reform movement and its demands". and he does not name anyone or even hint that he is reffering to a person such as Akbar Mohammadi. The last part of the sentence isn't even bothering to twist the words from the source, it's just made up!

Finally I must mention that User: Patchouli has also been harassing me on my talk page with personal attacks [9] therefore I wanted to clarify the reasons that I had for reverting/making changes to some of his edits and I hope that others will join in to help uphold the policies of Wikipedia. Barnetj 08:28, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I have warned Patchouli on his talk page to abide by Wikipedia regulations [10]. Barnetj 09:00, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I've stated before, use credible, noteworthy, and relevant persons when citing criticism of the President of Iran. Random quotes by Iranian governors in criticism of Mr. Bush won't stand, and nor will the criticism of some American counterpart of Khatami. Kaveh 03:23, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• Thy desire of a fully-loaded article has been fulfilled at Mohammad Khatami's reforms with several references to Khatami's own statements.--Patchouli 06:31, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

It seems useless to reason with Patchouli. Look at the list of his contributions to wikipedia, almost all of it consists of NPOV-violating negative comments, and all of it in articles related to Iran and some other middle eastern countries. He seems to have some kind of problem with this region of the world! In my opinion he is definitely an abuser and it's time to report him. I'm not exactly familiar with the process, but I anticipate that if we follow up the matter, his case will qualify for consideration before the arbitration comittee in no time (considering the way he is behaving, preliminary steps such as mediation etc. etc. will probably fail in a matter of days). So, does anybody have previous experience at this kind of situation? Exactly where do we start? I believe according to the rules at least two users must warn Patchouli in his talk page for his actions, before we can report him. I have warned him once, if another person warns him too and he still continues with his sneaky vandalism, then we should be able to start the process for bringing him before the arbitration comittee (they can ban him for good, for editing articles related to the middle east). Barnetj 19:09, 24 October 2006 (UTC)