Is Iran’s defeated but still feisty opposition Presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi eventually headed for jail? If you had to read tea leaves, the leaves seem to be lining up to suggest it could well happen.
Two big leaves can now be seen. Mousavi is continuing to speak out and lambaste what he calls the illegitimacy of an election that is widely seen by many Iranians, people around the world and most foreign governments as a ham-handedly rigged one. And there are now calls by the country’s feared militia for a government probe…with possible jail consequences.
Defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi said on Wednesday the new government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was “illegitimate”, in a statement posted on his website.
“It is our historical responsibility to continue our protests and not to abandon our efforts to preserve the nation’s rights,” he said, two days after Iran’s top legislative body confirmed Ahmadinejad’s election victory.
Mousavi, who has repeatedly said the June 12 vote was rigged, said he would join a planned association of leading figures which would follow up people’s rights and “ignored votes” in the election.
Its demands would include “halting security and military confrontation with the election, returning the country to a natural political atmosphere, reforming the election law to prevent vote rigging, securing freedom of holding rallies and freedom of press,” the statement said.
Mousavi also called on the authorities to release detained “children of the revolution”, in reference to scores of leading reformists arrested since the disputed poll, and said he could not compromise regarding people’s rights.
This is not the shut-up-and-go-along attitude that many in the Tehran-based regime and its supporters want to see. And some are calling for consequences:
Iran’s Basij militia is calling for an investigation into opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi’s role in the street protests that followed last month’s presidential election.
The semiofficial Fars news agency says the militia has sent Iran’s chief prosecutor a letter accusing Mousavi of taking part in nine offenses against the state, including “disturbing the nation’s security.”
That charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment.
The Basiji are known as the street enforcers of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Given Khamenei’s warning to protesters and opposition forces in general that the need to deep-six the protest and accept the vote, the question will arise as to whether the Basiji is calling for this probe on its own or with the encouragement of Khamenei so the government can say it is responding to a request and not simply launching a probe on its own.
Meanwhile, the regime’s repressive efforts continue:
Iranian authorities today temporarily shut down the newspaper of failed presidential contender Mehdi Karroubi, a former speaker of parliament, after it published a scathing letter condemning last month’s presidential election and the government’s response to allegations of widespread vote-rigging.
The Interior Ministry, controlled by a wealthy confidante of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, ordered that election-related political activities stop now that the Guardian Council, which is headed by another ally of the president, has confirmed the vote.
The actions are part of a broader attempt by the Iranian government to use the instruments of state to contain, stigmatize and silence a movement built on the presidential election campaigns of Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Karroubi and the belief among their supporters that Ahmadinejad and his powerful allies stole the election.
“Any activities by the election headquarters in provinces, cities and districts will no longer have a legal basis,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement published today on the website of Iran’s state-run Press TV news channel.
On Monday, Ahmadinejad called his reelection a triumph for the nation, blaming unspecified “conspiracies” and Iran’s “enemies” for the recent turmoil over the election …
Like many politicians, Ahmadinejad is now playing the demonization card to both whip up his supporters and deflect attention from the government’s increasingly ugly warts.
The New York Times offers this Web site page that updates events in Iran.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.