Opposition leader renews challenge to supreme leader’s authority as ex-president Khatami calls for referendum
Iran’s opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, has called for the immediate release of protesters who have been detained since last month’s disputed presidential election.
In a renewed challenge to Iran’s supreme leader, Mousavi, who claims he was robbed of victory in the election, also ridiculed claims that those arrested in the crackdown had foreign backing.
“Who believes these people, many of them prominent figures, would work with the foreigners to endanger their country’s interests? … They should be immediately released,” he said during a meeting today with detainees’ families, according to a reformist website.
Mousavi’s remarks directly contradicted the latest pronouncements from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, who said that “foreign enemies” supported the unrest by broadcasting “procedures for rioting” through their media. Khamenei also urged politicians to desist from actions that could spark further unrest similar to the mass demonstrations that erupted after the election.
Disturbing security is “the biggest vice”, he said.
Mousavi was not the only reformist figure to challenge Khamenei’s authority. Iran‘s former president, Mohammad Khatami, called for a referendum on the legitimacy of the government to end the country’s post-election crisis.
In a proposal reported by reformist websites, Khatami also said Iranians had lost their faith in the ruling political system. Although Khatami’s call for a referendum is unlikely to be adopted, it represents yet another test for the supreme leader, who has declared the results of the 12 June vote – in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner – as final. Khatami served as president from 1997 to 2005 but his attempts for reform were thwarted by Iran’s hardliners.
As political infighting continued, Iran released on bail the last British embassy worker it had arrested after last month’s mass demonstrations. Hossein Rassam has been charged with harming national security for alleged involvement in the protests, his lawyer said. Nine staff were originally detained after the re-election of Ahmadinejad and the street protests that followed.
Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad is coming under pressure from his own hardline supporters for appointing Iran’s first vice-president who once provoked a furore by saying Iranians were friends of Israelis. Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, whose daughter is married to Ahmadinejad’s son, angered hardliners in 2008 when he said Iranians were “friends of all people in the world, even Israelis”.
Mashaei was serving as vice-president in charge of tourism and cultural heritage at the time. Iran has 12 vice-presidents but the first vice-president is the most important because he leads cabinet meetings in the absence of the president.
Hossein Shariatmadari, an aide to the supreme leader and editor of the hardline Kayhan newspaper, said that Mashaei’s appointment caused “a wave of surprise mixed with regret and concern” among Ahmadinejad supporters.
“Many of the closest individuals to the president strongly oppose the appointment,” he added.
Ahmadinejad remained defiant, saying Mashaei’s comments on Israel had been “misrepresented”.
The row over Mashaei seemed to have ended last year after Khamenei, who backs Ahmadinejad, said in September the remarks “are not right but the dispute should end”.
The criticism was a reminder that Ahmadinejad faces pressure not just from the opposition but also from within his own camp. Before the 12 June vote, Ahmadinejad was often criticised for his handling of the economy by his supporters.
The cracks in Iran’s political establishment were highlighted last Friday when one of Iran’s most powerful clerics, former president Akbar Rafsanjani, criticised the government’s response to the election dispute.
Rafsanjani, speaking publicly for the first time since the election, condemned the government’s violent crackdown against protesters and demanded the release of those detained. Instead of suppression, he said the government should work to address the concerns Iranians have over the legitimacy of the vote.
The sermon was a direct challenge to Khamenei and his hardline supporters, who have called on opposition supporters to drop their claims of vote fraud. They have accused the US and other foreign countries of fomenting the unrest, a charge they have denied.
The Iranian army has arrested 36 officers who planned to attend last week’s Friday prayer sermon in their military uniforms as an act of political defiance, according to Farsi-language websites.
