Mousavi: 'Path of totalitarianism or the people's choice?'

GVF -- Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has said that at the moment, the Islamic Republic has two paths ahead of it: the path of “totalitarianism” and the path of the “people. According to Mousavi, the path of “totalitarianism” capitalises on the misuse of religion, prison, oppression and the suspension of the constitution whereas the path of the “people” meant recognising the “choice of the people”, the freedom of political prisoners as well as free and competitive elections without the vetting of candidates.

Mousavi made the remarks during a meeting with veterans of the Iran-Iraq war. According to the Kaleme website, Mousavi said during the meeting, that tragic events such as the assault on Tehran University Dormitories, the Kahrizak prisoner-abuse scandal and the current tragedies occurring in Iran’s prisons were the clear examples of the “brutality and evil” behind all “totalitarian and Pharaoh-like” tendencies and a continuation of the “thinking of the head of the Guardian Council” and “his students”.

The former prime minister referred to verses from the holy Quran foretelling the eternal truth that the oppressed would triumph over the “oppressors, totalitarians and Pharaohs [from all epochs]”.

Speaking on the spread of oppression and injustice in society, Mousavi added “tyranny and oppression are bad regardless of the circumstances and the time [in which they occur]. Regardless of whether it is during the Pahlavi [dynasty] or the Islamic Republic. In fact, oppression under the Islamic Republic is worse, because it is done in the name of Islam. Does Islam accept the violation of a human being or obtaining confessions from him by forcing his head down the toilet?”

Religious tyranny, the worst type of tyranny

Quoting Allameh Naeini, a leader in Iran’s Constitutional Reform Movement, Mousavi said, “We know that during the constitutional reform era, great people such as Allameh Naeini referred to religious tyranny as the worst type of tyranny.” The veteran reformist added that the post-election “arrests, the ways in which the trials were carried out, the tortures, the clampdowns in universities and the expulsion and starring of [politically active] students” and the “resistance of the prisoners and the people in seeking their demands” were reminiscent of stories mentioned in the holy Quran about the confrontation between the “Pharaoh and the oppressed” which foretold the “triumph of the oppressed” over evil.

Mousavi also commented on recent remarks by the chairman of the Guardian Council Ahmad Jannati who had claimed that the leaders of the Green Movement had received one billion dollars from the United States. “A person who must safeguard the people’s votes and protect the constitution ... is there a better reason for fraud in the election than this recent big lie? Especially if we take notice of the fact that this isn’t the first time he is making such foul remarks.”

“One cannot forget comments he made from a podium as sacred as that of the head of Friday prayers when he expressed gratitude to judicial officials for the execution of prisoners and called for the execution of more.” Mousavi called for everyone especially Iran’s clergy to investigate similar claims.

The way of the Pharaoh will persist

Mousavi told those present that “until [the day] we allow a few to take control of the state and to control positions and ranks and to call people calves, goats and dirt and dust, this tyranny will continue and a systematic deception as well as distortion of Islam will [also] be used.

He also touched on controversial comments made by a cleric last week on national television who said that “if half of the population is against the other half in power, then the ruling half has the right to execute the other half!”
 
“What is more disastrous is that he refers to the Battle of Nahrawan as his point of reference for his genocidal statement,” said Mousavi, pointing out that the cleric had purposefully taken the story of the famous battle out of context. “He did not even explain the Battle of Nahrawan, how it began and the unrestricted presence of the Kharijites in [Muslim] land ... Of course, we can find such ways of thinking among groups that carry out terror and murder.”

“Such a path will entail nothing but the final destruction of the regime, however, in the end, Iran, Iranian[s] and Islam will remain, but one can imagine how this path will break our nation’s back.”

The war-time prime minister argued that in the past, “different opportunities and ways” were used to “deal with the people” however, the regime’s dealings with the people in the past year had removed these “diversity”.

However, the much admired politician and artist also put forward another approach in resolving the current political deadlock: “The other alternative is to return to a path where the people control their own destiny and a few people do not make decisions for them. A path in which political prisoners are freed, social rights are recognised and limitations on the press and media are removed. The most important thing is acknowledging the right of having free, competitive and fliterless elections.”

The 2009 presidential candidate stressed once more the importance of free elections saying that “it is the people who can work out which individuals and with what line of thought they want to elect as members of parliament. It is the people’s real representatives who can understand the country’s interests and how to run it, not [a few] appointed representatives. Under such conditions, all the state’s members serve are chosen by the people and serve them instead of ruling over them. And in the first Majlis of the Islamic Republic, we came close to such an atmosphere.”

“But after the fourth Majlis [which began in April 1992], that atmosphere disappeared,” he added.

In the end, Mousavi cautioned that the beliefs of some of the members of the Guardian Council would demonstrate how this important council had distanced itself from its main responsibilities and that its transformation into a filter for the people’s vote was “destructive” for the country.