The Green Movement Now Includes Families of Officials

As supporters and associates of the ruling circles of the Iranian regime continued their accusations and slander of the leaders of the Green Movement through writings in the government media - which intensified when Mohammad Khatami formally announced, “the minimum demands of the reformers” – one of the leaders of the movement Mir-Hossein Mousavi responded to these attacks and announced, “they have surpassed even [Joseph] Goebbels in their lies and fabrications, and now include deceit and dishonesty in their dogmatic interpretations of religion.”

Speaking to Kalameh website two days ago, Mousavi explained the reason for his delayed response to the accusations that have been leveled against reform leaders by pro-government individuals to be the response that Mehdi Karoubi, another reform leader, had provided in public a few days ago. He further said, “The second reason for the delay in response is because this kind of propaganda belongs to the past. These are methods used by totalitarian regimes such as the Soviet Union during Stalin or Romania under Ceausescu. Those who engage in them in our country lack an understanding of this nation and have no awareness of the world.  They live in the pre-information age.”

Earlier, Karoubi had published an open letter to the Iranian nation in response to the verbal attacks by government supporters who had spoken of the “imminence” of the trial of reform leaders, in which he had written, “I declare that I am not moved by these threats and in fact welcome a trial and have evidence for my positions.” The letter also said that he had been troubled for 21 years because of the issues facing the country.

In response to a question about the impact of the accusations against him, Mousavi said that the accusations in fact produced the opposite effect of what the accusers wanted. “These 10 days provided a good opportunity to our nation to read the nature of these people. These lies demonstrated what kind of Islam they believe in.”

In the interview, Mousavi referenced his statement #17 (issued on January 1, 2010) and again called on the regime to free the political prisoners it was holding and declare its commitment to uphold all the principles of the constitution, while also guaranteeing the freedom of press, and of elections which he said would “extend the horizons.” He predicted that unless this was done, more suppression would follow as would greater demands. In that statement, Mousavi had counseled the regime on what to do to come out of its current impasse adding, “I categorically state that imprisoning or executing Karoubi, Mousavi and others among us would not solve the problems.” “How do you plan to change the opinion people hold of the regime? How do you plan to rebuild the legitimacy that has been lost? How do you plan to change world public opinion that has witnessed the violence of this government against its own people?” he had asked.

In his interview, Mousavi said that the recent lies, and cruel executions and sentences were used to suppress but in fact this culture has not been expanded from prison to the political sphere. He added that the current culture required those in power to condemn protestors and critics. This is a reference to the recent verbal attacks launched by some Majlis deputies, as the next parliamentary elections in Iran approach.

In another part of the interview Mousavi said that in their verbal attacks and disrespect, government supporters had  not left the senior clergy behind and included them too, without realizing that the demands of the Green Movement are echoed by family members of these very officials, and they are on the rise. The reason he said this was happening was because the demands were in fact national and not confined to a specific group.

Mousavi ended his interview by saying, “Being green does not mean we want everybody to look like us, but that we want everybody to live at peace with others who may be different in their views or opinions” and he called on his supporters to be a model of peaceful life with each other.