IRAN’S DEFEATED presidential challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, says he considers Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s new government to be illegitimate and has called for protests to continue.
In a defiant statement on his website, the moderate leader also called for the release of detained “children of the revolution” – a reference to reformist figures arrested since the June 12th elections.
Iran’s national police chief said 1,032 people had been detained but most had been freed. The rest had been “referred to the public and revolutionary courts”.
Mr Mousavi’s language seemed chosen to suggest that the Islamic regime, which in the last two weeks has seen the worst unrest in 30 years, was betraying the basic principles of the 1979 revolution.
“It is our historical responsibility to continue our protests and not to abandon our efforts to preserve the nation’s rights,” the former prime minister insisted.
“From now on we will have a government which, from the point of view of ties with the public, is in the weakest of positions.”
“A majority of society, of which I personally am a member, do not accept the legitimacy of this government.”
Mr Mousavi also demanded an end to the regime’s “obsession” with security, the reform of electoral laws he believes were abused, the constitutional right to free political assembly, an end to restrictions on the media and the right to set up independent television stations.
It was his first public statement since Monday’s final certification by the guardian council – Iran’s top legislative body – that there had been no “major irregularities” in the election after a partial recount, despite widespread complaints and suspicions of vote-rigging.
Mr Mousavi quickly won heavyweight support from Iran’s former reformist president Mohammed Khatami, who decried what he called a “velvet coup against democracy” – a mirror image of the charge by the regime that foreign powers such as Britain and the US are pushing for a “velvet revolution” in the country. – (Guardian service)