TEHRAN, Aug 29 (AFP) - A rising number of public floggings and executions in Islamic Iran, also considered "divine punishments," have driven a new wedge between conservatives and the reformist allies of moderate President Mohammad Khatami, analysts say.
Carried out frequently in the tumultuous early days of the 1979 Islamic revolution, public floggings and executions gradually disappeared from the public eye.
But recently, floggings are once more a popular form of punishment, and increasingly drawing the wrath of both the general population and reform-minded politicians.
Over 200 youth have been publicly lashed in Tehran over the past few weeks, mostly on charges of drinking alcohol, while the nation's supreme court earlier this month upheld death sentences handed down on more than 100 convicted murderers.
The latest round of punishments comes at the start of reformist President Mohammad Khatami's second and final four-year term in office.
"The flogging of youths, which has become common practice in Tehran public places, are beginning to spark reactions from the population and harm the regime's image on the international scene," the Islamic Republic Mujahedeen Organisation, a reformist party close to Khatami, warned in July.
Khatami, himself, recently criticised what he called "harsh and repressive measures against the youth."
"In a society where there is poverty, discrimation and illegal profits, you can't expect young people to be perfect," Khatami said.
But prominent conservatives and clerics have continued to defend the use of floggings, saying it is a "fundamental principle" of Islam.
For the first time, the nation's reform-majority parliament held a top-level emergency meeting this week to review the issue, while the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) headed by Khatami, has been called to investigate the matter.
The issue of public punishemnts "is not just a legal matter, but also carries political, security, social, domestic and international" importance, said Mohsen Armin, parliament's deputy speaker.
The SNSC is now scheduled to study the report by parliament's national security and foreign policy committee.
An emergency parliament meeting on Sunday was attended by top judicial officials as well as Intelligence Minister Ali Yunessi.
"It has become the focal point of political disputes," said political analyst Dariush Abdali, adding the public punishments also represent a "trap placed by conservatives for reformers.
"A similar trap was placed during the government of Mehdi Bazargan (after the 1979 revolution). He was opposed to such practices, but drew the anger of conservatives who considered the punishments as divine nature. He (Bazargan) was forced to leave," Abdali added.
The political situation is "completely different in 2001, but it is still a trap," Abdali said.
Reformers, under pressure from the nation's powerful conservatives, have somewhat "rectified their stance," and are now carefully raising the issue of Iran's international image while "avoiding questioning" Iran's Islamic law and punishments, Abadli said.
"Despite Khatami's victory (in the June 8 presidential elections), Iran's image has not been straightened out with these public executions, floggings and multiple arrests," Abdali said.
Political sciences professor Shahrdad Rahmanipour for his part believes that this "open" debate over the judiciary's methods of fighting social coruption and other crimes is unprecedented, not just in the Islamic republic, but also in Iran's entire history.
"This (debate) was made possible by Khatami," Rahmanipour said.
But many of the nation's powerful conservatives reject the concerns raised by reformers, notably over Iran's international image.
Hardline Ayatollah Mohammad-Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, professor at a religious school in the Iranian holy city of Qom, said last week that "if the Westerners do not like it, that is their problem, but the death penalty and the use of flogging are fundamental principles of our religion.