Iran's "Third Force'

[democratic]

"Reformist" movement has been dead since 2001. Iran's new force is strongly Secular and consistant with the Students not with Khatami. That's precisely why the Students are calling for mass boycott of upcoming parliamentary elections.

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/iran/tl04.html

The Third Force - The opposition movement sweeps Iran

President Khatami was re-elected in another landslide victory in June 2001, but disillusionment with government "reform" was widespread, and young voters insisted that their support for the president was conditional on substantial change. Their expectations were now higher, and the situation more volatile.

Heightened tensions exploded in October 2001 when hundreds of thousands of protestors took to the streets for weeks, clamoring for democratic freedom and engaging in violent clashes with police. The demonstrations were significant not only for their size but also for the participation of ordinary citizens, whose presence signaled the broadening of the opposition. Strikes by teachers, workers and nurses, attended by thousands, throughout 2001 and 2002, further reflected that resentment toward the regime was no longer confined to the students.

Even more significant was the movement's break from Khatami. Public criticism of the president intensified throughout late 2001, culminating in calls for his resignation in November 2002 during several weeks of protests when the regime sentenced a pro-reform professor to death. With its rejection of Khatami, the opposition became known as the Third Force, an independent movement outside of the official political camps of the reformists and the conservatives.

The growing political crisis in Iran garnered worldwide attention in 2003. Iranian activists inside the country spread word through the Internet of anti-regime sentiment, and exiles and Iranians abroad used radio and the Web to organize against the clerics. Then the harsh reprisals faced by opposition activists were highlighted by the case of Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian photographer of Iranian descent who was tortured to death in July 2003 for taking pictures of the notorious Evin prison, where political prisoners are held. And in October 2003, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to lawyer Shirin Ebadi, for her efforts in fighting government repression and advocating for human rights inside Iran.