Iran’s powerful Guardian Council said yesterday that it stood by a decision to disqualify thousands of reformist candidates from standing in next month’s parliamentary elections. The constitutional body, which is dominated by hardliners, said it would not be influenced by criticism from MPs, who have been holding a sit-in to protest at the ban. “The Guardian Council won’t back down at all,” a spokesman, Ebrahim Azizi, told a press conference. “We claim that the Guardian Council has constantly implemented the law… Hues and cries will have no impact on our interpretation of the law,” he said. Full Story