Mousavi forms new political front

(Borzou Daragahi | LA Times | 8 August 2009) – Iran’s opposition leader today announced the formation of a new political front aimed at continuing the struggle against what he described as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s illegitimate government and maintaining the grassroots political movement unleashed by the nation’s disputed June elections.Defying the threats by hard-liners to have him tried for sedition, Mir-Hossein Mousavi declared the creation of “The Green Path of Hope” as an attempt to institutionalize the political movement built on his presidential campaign and the outrage that followed the disputed results and the ensuing violent crackdown.

“Numerous volunteer and independent social networks throughout the society form the body of this movement,” Mousavi told a group of doctors today, according to the semi-official Iranian Labor News Agency. “The Green Path of Hope is in fact aimed at regaining people’s denied rights.”

The announcement came amid ongoing strife between factions fighting for dominance within the country’s deeply fractured political establishment. Hours after the announcement, the Revolutionary Court, controlled by hard-liners close to Ahmadinejad, announced the convening of a third session on Sunday of a mass trial against 25 defendants accused of fomenting weeks of unrest after the election, the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency reported.

International human rights monitors and domestic critics have derided the televised trials of prisoners without access to lawyers as Stalinist “show trials” that fail to measure up to Iranian legal standards.

The court also announced that seven alleged leaders of the country’s Baha’i community will stand trial on charges of spying for Israel, desecrating Islam and spreading propaganda against the system, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency. Shiite clergy consider the Baha’i religion, born in 19th century Iran, heretical.

In his comments today, Mousavi blasted the nation’s justice system. “We would not have witnessed so many crises today had [the authorities] adopted fair positions and respected people’s rights . . . instead of humiliating people on state television,” he said in reference to a series of awkward televised confessions by defendants held in solitary confinement for weeks.

“Instead of accusing million-strong demonstrators of connection to foreigners, you have to find those who are waging a poisonous propaganda war on our people,” he said.

Iran’s justice system has also come under scrutiny after allegations of jailhouse rape and torture in detention centers leveled by former parliamentary speaker Mehdi Karroubi, an ally of Mousavi. Parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani, after dismissing the charges less than 24 hours after vowing to investigate them, today declared that 100 cases of alleged rape had been investigated. Mehdi Taeb, a pro-Ahmadinejad lawmaker, called on authorities to whip Karroubi if he couldn’t find four witnesses for each case of alleged rape.

Iranian authorities say some prison guards have already been dismissed for alleged abuses. But Human Rights Watch, the New York-based advocacy group, called on Iranian authorities Thursday to hold the chiefs of the security agencies accountable as well.

Despite concerns about Iran’s justice system, there are few signs Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has any plans to adjust the country’s course.

He officially named hard-liner Sadegh Larijani, a member of the powerful and conservative Guardian Council and the brother of parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani, to a five-year term as head of the judiciary and moved the current judiciary chief, Mohammad Hashemi Shahroudi, to the 12-person Guardian Council, which this week elected hard-liner Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati as its chief for the next year.