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By Martin Fletcher
Source: Times Online
March 19, 2010
The First Couple of the Iranian opposition movement have marked the start of the Persian New Year this weekend by demanding a “year of resistance” against a despotic regime.
In defiant video messages posted on the internet, Mir Hossein Mousavi and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, accuse the regime of violating the constitution, wrecking the economy and destroying Iran’s international standing.
The coming year should be known as the “year of resistance”, Mr Mousavi declared. The so-called Green movement must not abandon its demands for freedom. To do so would be “treason against the nation, Islam and the blood of our martyrs.”
“We want deceit and darkness to end,” said Ms Rahnavard, a fiery artist and academic who champions women’s rights.
Mohammed Khatami, a former president and another de facto opposition leader, also weighed in by demanding free elections and the release of political prisoners.
The three leaders failed to suggest new ways of confronting a regime whose security forces have largely suppressed the massive street demonstrations which the opposition staged after last summer’s hotly disputed presidential election.
Mr Mousavi spoke only of the opposition’s need to “expand its reach to all segments of society”. Ms Rahnavard said that the Green movement sought to achieve its demands through “evolution”, not revolution.
The regime continued its repression today by jailing Hossein Marashi, a former Vice-President in Mr Khatami’s reformist Government, for spreading subversive propaganda in the post-election turmoil.
For Mr Mousavi to offer a name for the coming year was in itself an act of defiance as that is traditionally the job of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader.
The posting of the messages also raised echoes of President Obama’s videotaped New Year greeting to the Iranian people 12 months ago when he was still seeking a rapprochement with the regime.
Speaking next to a portrait of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, Mr Mousavi decried the killings and other atrocities that followed the election, and accused the regime of violating the constitution by taking away the people’s right to free elections, a free press and privacy.
“Our constitution was created in a sea of martyred blood. It is not something that we can lose easily and we must all return to its principles,” he said.
He also predicted a deepening economic crisis in the coming year with “greater unemployment and extensive and increasing poverty”.
He said that crisis could be compounded by international sanctions because the regime was pursuing “the worst possible international relations and foreign policy”.
Ms Rahnavard echoed her husband, saying: “In this New Year we want a return of freedom to our country. We want the rule of law. We want deceit and darkness to end. We want an end to discrimination.”