By Robert F. Worth
Source:
April 29, 2010

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Iranian opposition leader released a video statement on Thursday calling on workers and teachers to join the reformist cause, in a bold new attempt to broaden and energize the country’s flagging protest movement. Enlarge This Image

The statement came as groups representing laborers and teachers called for demonstrations, and a labor coalition issued its own list of economic grievances to mark International , on May 1, opposition Web sites reported.

Mr. Moussavi and other opposition leaders have previously urged workers and teachers to join them, but not as directly or as urgently. Now the possibility of laborers taking to the streets — as they did during the 1979 Islamic Revolution — has rattled the hard-line establishment.

On Wednesday, Ayatollah , ’s supreme leader, issued a veiled warning to workers not to allow themselves to be politicized, saying “the enemy has tried to use the workers as a leverage against the Islamic regime” in the past, but had always failed, according to the semiofficial ILNA news agency.

In his video appeal, Mr. Moussavi said the challenges workers faced — low wages, inflation, economic mismanagement and the inability to create independent organizations — were also essential grievances of the Green movement, as the opposition calls itself.

He urged the creation of a united front against government malfeasance and injustice, and even linked President ’s foreign policy to workers’ circumstances. “The government’s illogical actions have a direct effect on what the people of Iran can put on their table,” Mr. Moussavi said.

Workers’ and teachers’ groups have often demonstrated and issued grievances on Labor Day, but their cause has been distinct from that of the reformists, who — at least until last year — were led largely by students, intellectuals and former government officials. Ali Akbar Baghbani, the director of the largest Iranian teachers’ union, and Mohammad Beheshti Langaroudi, the union’s spokesman, were arrested and taken to Evin prison this week, according to the ’s Persian service. They were briefly imprisoned last year at this time.

On Monday, Mr. Moussavi broke a long silence by calling for protests on June 12, the first anniversary of . He was joined in that video appeal by the reformist cleric , and both men seem determined to revive the opposition movement’s sagging energies and to project confidence about the depth of their popular support.

In another sign of defiance, by the government announced that they would continue political activities despite the ban, according to the Web site Khabar Online.

So far, there are few signs that the opposition is regaining the confidence it had during the months after the election last June, when vast crowds of people took to the streets to declare Mr. Ahmadinejad’s landslide victory a fraud and to battle with the police and militia members. Those protests were the worst domestic unrest in the Islamic republic’s 30-year history, and they stirred hopes among reformists — and their sympathizers abroad — for a profound change in the country.

But the authorities cracked down hard, with arrests, show trials and increasingly effective intimidation tactics. Ever since a planned major protest evaporated in February, the movement has seemed disoriented and leaderless, and uncertain how to move forward. It is far from clear whether the new effort to link arms with laborers and teachers will succeed.

Yet Iran’s conservatives are also divided, with . And for all its crowing about having crushed the opposition, the hard-line clerical elite has sounded some unusually anxious notes lately, suggesting a deep concern over the possibility of renewed protests. On Sunday, Ayatollah Khamenei issued a stern warning about lurking domestic threats in a speech to Interior Ministry officials.

“Criminals are among the people, and the police must conduct skillful surgery without injuring the body,” Ayatollah Khamenei said, adding that “swift and strong action must be taken against individuals in society who intentionally or by accident stray from the religious, noble and chaste.”

The government seems aware that for all its skill at repressing protesters, the potential for insurrection remains, analysts say. “The economic malaise, political outrage and social discontent that brought millions of people to the streets last year has not been ameliorated,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Iranian society remains a potential powder keg.”

The authorities have begun to hint at the methods they may use to intimidate potential protesters. The opposition Web site Jaras has reported that the government is planning to broadcast interviews with detained reformists to coincide with the anniversary of the presidential election. Some interviews will be with those who have been “broken” by interrogators, the report said.

Nazila Fathi contributed reporting from Toronto.