Opposition supporters used the occasion of a sermon by Ayatalollah Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to mobilize large street protests in Tehran today. In a predictably cagy speech, the former president called for the release of political prisoners but he failed to condemn the government’s crackdown and his equivocation drew criticism from the crowd.
A circular distributed among supporters of presidential candidate Mir Hosein Mousavi urged those attending the sermon to use the event for a peaceful protest:
“In the middle of the speech, to show our approval of what Rafsanjani says, instead of the usual slogan, ‘God is great, Khamenei is our leader,’ we say, ‘God is great! Death to the dictator,’ ” the circular said. “Our goal is not to participate in Friday prayers or stand behind [Rafsanjani]. The goal is to again gather millions of people in the street on Friday.”
The present crisis provides an opportunity to revive calls for economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation by “channeling international disgust with the regime’s abuses into concerted action,” writes Michael Singh, former senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council. He links the stealing of the election with the regime’s nuclear aspirations:
Iran wants a nuclear weapon because the regime is insecure to the point of paranoia. Understanding this insecurity helps to explain many of the regime’s actions. Only a jittery regime would so transparently and clumsily rig an election contested only by candidates it had handpicked.
In addition to official sanctions, civil society groups, including labor unions and women’s groups, should extend solidarity to Iranian dissidents, writes Emanuele Ottolenghi, director of the Brussels-based Transatlantic Institute and author of Under a Mushroom Cloud: Europe, Iran and the Bomb. He calls for person-to-person outreach and dialogue through professional societies, high-profile assemblies to raise awareness of Iran’s human rights record, and media campaigns in support of individual dissidents.
Andrew Apostolou, a senior program manager at Freedom House, berates those who believe the defeat of the reformist camp will end illusions about the nature of the regime.
“Mousavi oversaw a brutal war economy in the 1980s when mass human rights violations were the norm,” he writes. But he would have led Iran “toward caution and away from recklessness, toward restraint and away from adventurism.”
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