HIGHLIGHTS: No Explanation Given to Statement Issued as an Official U.S. News Release||Official Iranian Press Says 140 Iranians Defying Ban on Demonstrations Arrested||Bush Supports Iranians Wanting to Build Modern, Prosperous, Free as well as Islamic State in Teheran|| STORY: President Bush said Friday the United States endorses the cause of Iranians defying their government to support a dissident religious leader. (Read photo caption)

"As we have witnessed over the past few days, the people of Iran want the same freedoms, human rights and opportunities as people around the world," Bush said in a statement. "Their government should listen to their hopes."

The White House gave no explanation for the statement, issued as an official news release.

Iran's largest reform party and more than 100 lawmakers defended the religious leader, Ayatollah Jalaleddin Taheri, who quit his post as a mosque preacher to protest the influence of hard-line authorities, Tehran newspapers reported Thursday.

A government-owned daily also reported that police detained on Tuesday more than 140 people who defied a ban on demonstrations to attend a peaceful rally outside Tehran University.

In the statement, Bush said a large majority of Iranian voters opted for political and economic reform in the last two Iranian presidential elections and almost a dozen parliamentary campaigns.

"Yet their voices are not being listened to by the unelected people who are the real rulers of Iran," Bush said.

He spoke of talented students and professionals who flee Iran because of repression and economic disruption there.
As the people of Iran struggle to build a modern state that is prosperous and free as well as Islamic, "They will have no better friend than the United States," Bush said.

The Bush administration has expressed concern over a variety of Iranian weapons programs and what it says is an expanded Iranian role in support of regional terrorist groups. In his State of the Union speech in January, Bush included Iran as a member with Iraq and North Korea in an "axis of evil."

PHOTO CAPTION

President Bush summoned top prosecutors and regulators to the Roosevelt Room at the White House, Friday, July 12, 2002, for the first meeting with his corporate fraud task force. Bush is seeking to reassure shaken investors and contain political fallout amid a string of business scandals. Joining the president from left to right are: FBI Director Robert Mueller, Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, Bush, and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)