Majlis Reps Have Wrong Address

A pro-Ahmadinejad Majlis MP revealed that 100 members of parliament met with Iran’s attorney general to hand him a legal complaint against the June 12 presidential contestant Mir Hossein Mousavi. Rooz has prepared an investigative report on the views of prominent attorneys and the positions of Ahmadinejad supporters, including some Islamic Republic Guards (IRGC) leaders on this. Here are the excerpts:

Hamid Rasai, himself an MP supporting the administration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, made the announcement without revelation the identity of any of the MPs who had signed the letter. He said the complaint was a “legal document” filed because of Mousavi’s statements and measures that had hurt the image of the regime, leading to damage caused to public and private property.”

According to Rasai, Mousavi’s “crime” is that he “trampled on the rights of the Iranian nation.”  

The news of this complaint comes at a time when observers believe that the attorney general by law cannot be office to file such a complaint, and that the issues raised in the complaint cannot be the basis of a judgment against Mousavi.

Abdolfattah Soltani, the well-known attorney who has defended many dissidents and imprisoned activists in Iran stressed that, “other than the attorney general of Tehran, the attorney general of the country does not have the right to intervene in such matters.” He further said that Majlis MPs cannot be the complainants, adding that if a crime has been committed against the public, the representative can only announce that a violation has taken place, which is different from being a complainant. He said that the Majlis deputies have no standing because they were not the immediate individuals to have been hurt by Mousavi’s actions. “Anyone who has any understanding of the law and politics knows that this complaint has no legal basis and its contents are not legal or judicial,” Soltani said. His conclusion was that this was a measure to scare Mousavi and stop him from his political activities.

Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, another prominent attorney, told Rooz that the complaint letter lacked legal basis from a juridical perspective. He added that a person could not go to the attorney general to ask for redress. “The only time that the attorney general can come into the picture is when state attorneys general violate their responsibilities or authority,” Dadkhah said. He said that Mousavi was a political personality and any trial they hold for him will be political in nature, not legal. In other words it is his political behavior that would be on trial, which would come out as a propaganda or a political act of one political group against another. He concluded his views by saying that Mousavi had defended the country at the time of war and so it was unfair to raise such issues over him.

Mohammad Seyf, another prominent lawyer and member of the Center for the Defense of Human Rights also said that the job of the attorney general was to supervise the work of provincial attorneys general, adding that such a complaint could be submitted to Tehran’s prosecutor. “Other than the issue of damage to public property which could be the basis of a legal complaint, the other issues raised in the letter are mere slogans without any legal foundation, and are thus not crimes,” Seyf said. But even then he said that even such damage had nothing to do with Majlis deputies.

This is not the first time Majlis MPs have filed a complaint against Mousavi. They did this in July and this was made public by Rasai, Ali Shahrokhi and Salman Zaker, three extreme pro-Ahmadinejad Majlis deputies.

At the same time IRNA state-run news agency reported that a number of religious students had filed a complaint against Mousavi and Faeze Hashemi (the daughter of Hashemi Rafsanjani), claiming, “in view of the confessions made by the detainees of recent events .. we request an examination of the crimes of Mousavi and Mrs. Hashemi (actions against national security, conspiracy in disturbing public peace, destruction of public property, and insulting state institutions).”

During the last three months, Kayhan newspaper and other pro-state newspapers in Iran have called for the prosecution of Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi and took these matters to the point where seyed Alireza Beheshti, the son of the one of the original founders of the Islamic revolution who was assassinated, said that instead of trying Mousavi, they should be passing a resolution of no confidence on Ahmadinejad.

Fake news about public complaints, such as those by the people of Arak, war veterans, a group of teachers from Tehran province, a group of traders from Tehran etc have also been published in this period by pro-Ahmadinejad media. But these reports have not gone beyond mere publication. Some have even been denied and disclaimed. Hardline Kayhan newspaper claimed that the father of Seyed Mostafa Ghanian, a war veteran belonging to the Green Movement that calls for reforms in Iran, was one person who had called for such a trial. But immediately after the publication of this claim, the man issued a disclaimer and denied making any such call.

Pro-government groups have also created a news site for complaints against Mousavi. A branch has also been set aside at the government employees administrative tribunal for this issue and the public has been invited to file their complaints against the former prime minister.  State run IRNA news agency has claimed that some 29,000 individual shave filed complaints against Mousavi so far. Rajai website, a pro-government site, claims that 50,000 individuals have made such a complaint.

As IRGC commanders have made political statements, this issue has taken a more dangerous turn. In this regard, Hossein Marashai, a senior member of the Kargozaran Sazandeghi (Agents for Construction) party warned that, “if the political atmosphere of the country turns favorable, there is intent to drive out the main political opposition personalities in the second phase of the crackdown.”

General Jazaeri, a top military police official has also spoken of arresting and trying Mousavi and Karoubi, while the commander in chief of the IRGC and the head of its political bureau have also accused Mousavi to be responsible for the deaths of a number of citizens and of being spies for foreign intelligence agencies.

Prior to this, there had also been reports in the Iranian media that the supreme national security council of Iran had discussed the arrest of reformist leaders and the two presidential candidates who had contested the election results. The reasons for not going ahead with such ideas have not been published or publicly mentioned. A senior political personality in the Islamic republic told Rooz that the current policy on this is to wait and see, adding that Ahmadinejad’s supporters are waiting for the right time and circumstances to arrest Mousavi and Karoubi. He added that the current conditions in the country were not in favor of such a move, from their perspective, but the idea has not been rejected or set aside. Proponents of these ideas now form two groups, one arguing that the crises is over and so the roots of the fiasco must be dealt with, meaning that Mousavi and Karoubi have to be arrested, while the other group believes that the crises is not over and so such a move would result in uncontrollable events.