Mousavi slams 'organised government deception'

GVF -- In a meeting with a group of university professors, Mir Hossein Mousavi, a leader in Iran’s opposition Green Movement said that the spread of deceit was a sign of decline in society and stressed that “organised lying undermines legitimacy and today we are facing organised deceit and the cyber media must to their utmost to expose this ominous and growing phenomenon.”

According to Kaleme, Mousavi was making these remarks among professors from the Islamic Association of Students. He explained that the nation’s religious beliefs were being misused by the authorities and that religion was being used to provide explanations for all the problems and concerns in the country. “A head of Friday prayers has stated that Imam Mahdi [the revered and hidden Shiite Imam] supports the Guardian Council’s filtering [of candidates in elections].” Mousavi mockingly added, “We are waiting to see how he was so certain about the [hidden] Imam’s approval regarding the vetting process and the injustices that have taken place against the candidates during the vetting process?”

Attack on human sciences reminiscent of totalitarian rule

Mousavi also criticised the “organised assault” on human sciences in Iran’s universities and added, “when I see these attacks, I am reminded of the biter and alarming experiences of the former soviet regime and other totalitarian regimes of the eastern [block]. After Stalin’s era, they considered social sciences as sciences derived from imperialist and bourgeois societies and for this reason; with a few exceptions they banned these studies.”

“Prohibiting and placing limitations for these fields of science blinded them with respect to the rapid rate of change in the world and in their own societies and compromised their regimes’ flexibility in the face of the social developments in their countries and the world. One of the reasons for the downfall of these regimes was the lack of scientists and theoreticians in social sciences.”

The former prime minister also expressed dismay over the lies and slanders that have become common in society and among the state’s media apparatus. “It seems that the fates of all totalitarians are similar all over the world and their methods are [also] the similar.”

Mousavi then drew parallels between the current rulers of Iran and the leaders of the Soviet Union in covering up the truth and spreading lies and falsifications with the difference that “back then, the computer tools for censorship and editing had not been developed like now.” “Just listen to the comments made by the authorities today. It would seem [from their comments], that our country has the lowest rate of inflation, unemployment has reached its lowest rate, our country is attracting the greatest amount of foreign capital as though investors are queuing up behind the countries gates in order to receive permission to participate in investing in the country.”

“The lies have come to a point where they claim that our people are the freest nation in the world ... Our judicial officials will most likely say that our judiciary is the most independent and impartial judicial system in the world.”

Green media to fight organised governmental deception

“Organised deception undermines legitimacy and today we are facing organised deceit and the cyber media must to their utmost to expose this ominous and growing phenomenon,” Mousavi said. He also called artists to take an active role in “making clips, cartoons, posters” and other means of forms of art to fight deception and fraud in the country. “In response to any analysis filled with lies, we must provide our people with an analysis based on the truth and reality, even if our abilities are not as much as the hardliners [in power].”

Chain killings not to be forgotten

The 2009 presidential candidate stated that the current trend of deception among the country’s leaders coupled with petrodollars could not strengthen the regime and that everyone must be sceptical about any claim or assertion made by hardliners about individuals, prisoners and figures in the country. He added that the present situation in the country was a continuation of other past actions taken by authorities such as the chain killings in the late 90s.

Mousavi also condemned the recent terrorist suicide bombing in the south-eastern Iranian city of Zahedan that left 28 people dead and scores wounded. At the same time, he added that the crisis was not just a security problem and was linked with the people’s sense of injustice and lack of participation in shaping their own destiny. “Today, attending to the problems and concerns of cultures, ethnic communities and our border regions is of utmost priority.”

“Is it not better for us to reduce our deafening rhetorics about changing the world and to instead, sit together with Baluchis, Sistanis, Kurds, Persians, [Azeri] Turks in a friendly setting and to understand their problems and to create a more humane and just atmosphere with their help?”

Mousavi added, “A great country of seventy million people with its own civilisation can be run by the seventy million people in that country, not by a few!”

In the end, Mousavi stated that “God willing, we will see the realisations of the lord’s promises, and what will remain is what’s in the interest of the people. We must know that lies and tyranny will fade away.”