Iran Document: English Text of Mousavi-Karroubi Meeting (26 April)

From Kalemeh, translated by Khordaad 88:

According to reports by Saham News Agency, the official agency for the National Trust Party, Mehdi Karroubi met with Mir Hossein Mousavi in Karroubi’s residence. Karroubi wished a good and dignified year for Mir Hossein Mousavi and for people of Iran. He prayed to the Almighty to provide the grounds for freedom of political prisoners.


Most of the legislation in the country is aimless and merely for the sake of legislating something

Mir Hossein Mousavi criticized the policies underway and said, “Most of our policies are unplanned and aimless. Unfortunately, our frameworks are like sandholes that cannot hold even a drop of water. Currently we do not have a clear and concise framework or plans. We must think more long-term. The conditions in the government are such that everyone is assumed a conspirator and officials suffer from illusions of conspiracy....

Mousavi criticized the totalitarians and said, “These people don’t understand the bulk of what we talk about. They are only looking at the wordings in our statements and speeches, instead of looking at the concepts we introduce. Unfortunately this is a problem expected from an ideological system. They retell the rumors and illusions that they have created themselves in such a way that they start to believe in it themselves. Then they would fall prey to their own stories, and things come down to what we have that they don’t see the realities anymore."

People would not forget

Mousavi criticized the way Foreign Policy, the Economy, and Corruption are handled in the country and said, “We believe that our people have a collective memory. The government thinks people will forget its actions. People will not forget. What happened for example in those financial scandals that broke out last week? They merely apprehended some low-level names, and named one person, and suddenly grew silent about the whole thing; or how about that video of beating the university students inside the campus? Sadly, they think people will forget as time goes by."

With which crime do they accuse people of being infidel and out of Islam?

Islam does not approve these actions. Every day they call a group of people infidel or out of Islam or what not, just because a group has said something different than the "honourable" men in power. I cannot conceive how they are going to stay [unembarrassed] in front of the Almighty. The situation among our labourers --- their lack of work, their expulsion, and the postponement of their salaries, not to mention the declining rate of investments and many other problems --- all originate from the weak economic policies and incompetent managerial methods. People do forget what you promise, and what you deliver."

Mir Hossein Mousavi added an anecdote to this discussion: “In the early years of the revolution, people looked around and found the person who had ordered the soldiers of the father of the Shah to open fire on people many years before. He was 90 years old. What I want to get across from this story is that people will not forget what has happened in this last year to them."

All the experienced experts of different fields have been pushed away from their institutions

Mousavi criticised the way the country is managed. He alluded to the current weaknesses and said, “In all nations, senior managers and experienced government officials work as consultants to the government. But in this country, where are people like Mr. Khatami, as the ex-President with eight years of experience, and people like you (Karroubi) who headed the Parliament twice, and other leaders of our country? Just because they had different politics ideas, they have been pushed away from all the institutions."

Mousavi added, “I see no light at the end of the tunnel for our economic recovery because all the underlying structure is ruined, supervisory, and monitoring institutions have been taken away, and they do not understand the worth of experts anymore. Even if one of the conservatives speaks out, he is called a traitor."

Karroubi: They think that nobody can hear the opposition. But people can hear

Karroubi agreed with Mousavi and said, “Unfortunately, the trouble that they put people through in the name of Islam damages the reputation of Islam. The current situation of the country is very horrible. They say whatever they wish, accuse whoever they desire, and publish whatever statistics they want. This is because they think that nobody hears the voice of their opposition, but people can listen. People see the economic and political condition that the country has come down to.

"The authorities don’t see what dark destiny awaits them. An example is the recent scandal in the industrial complex of Asalouieh. Many people lost their jobs because of the wrong policies, wrong implementations, lack of direction, and organization. According to official statistics, the numbers of people working in Asalouieh has decreased from 60,000 people to 8,000. Why do we have to lose $30 billion worth of revenues from Natural Gas exports due to lack of management? What is the reason for all this unemployment? Why is the workers’ situation so bad? The "honourable" authorities either don’t know or they don’t want to know what impacts every word they say in the international scene has here at home. Due to sanctions, they had to sign contracts with China, Malaysia and Venezuela and now they had to give (contracts) to the military forces.

Mehdi Karroubi further criticised the hypocrisy apparent in government actions during recent incidents and said, “When I spoke out about the atrocities of Kahrizak Prison and followed up on it, they aggressively tried to frighten me, and threaten me. They lied to discredit my documented evidence. None of these pressures worked on me. In the end, with all the noise they had created around how they are going to follow up on this issue, they produced a small report from the events at Kahrizak, and apprehended and sentenced two hapless low-level police officers and a small-time gangster, or so they say, and closed the file on this. They didn’t even offer a report to the Parliament."

In this meeting, Mr. Karroubi severely criticized the monitoring system and said, “According to one of the letters that one of the prisoners sent to the supreme religious figures, which is still without a response, they have called the spouse of this prisoner and asked the spouse to divorce the prisoner. What law is this? What sort of protection of citizen rights and human rights is this that interrogators allow themselves to interfere with the most personal relations of the prisoners and threaten them? Is this interrogator an official in an "Islamic" government?’ When they say we are a grand and great government, is this sort of actions what they mean?"

Have we preserved our worldwide honor and dignity?

Karroubi addressed Mousavi and said, "You were the Prime Minister of the country during the time of the Imam (Khomeini). As you may recall, the Imam stressed the importance of visiting foreign countries and preserving our national dignity and honour.  Can we honestly say today that our honour and dignity are being preserved? Is this our claim to greatness when we visit foreign countries? Should our greatness only be in the eyes of such countries as Zimbabwe? Is it greatness to be compared to “malaria mosquitoes” or be referred to as the “ruthless executioner” of opponents? Is it because they [government officials] were so victorious that they were insulted at Columbia University? What are these gentlemen thinking? Do they even bother to think?

"When I was head of the Islamic Parliament, we took great pride in canceling trips to countries that belittled the dignity of our great nation. These days they follow one policy one day and another the next. Must they belittle our country to this extent?"

Should our people be exposed to such ridiculous and childish thoughts and behaviour?

Referring to the ruling party’s propaganda machine, Karroubi said: "They demand that we repent. Should they not be repenting for torturing, lying, violating human rights, and squandering our nation’s treasury? One day they claim that we should increase our population, the next day they complain that Tehran is overpopulated and we must expel five million people from Tehran. Another day they predict an earthquake and demand that the people repent in order to prevent the earthquake from coming, and when the earthquake does not occur, they claim that it was an answer to all their prayers. Should our people be exposed to such ridiculous and childish thoughts and behaviour?

"Is the current economic downturn and vast unemployment that plague our country not enough? What specific economic plans have they put in place to support the population growth that they have promoted through their propaganda machine? What is the significance and meaning of the strategy that this present government is proposing?

In relation to human rights violations and the current situation of prisons in Iran, Karroubi added, "Why are the same human rights organizations that were hailed for putting pressure on prisons during Shah’s regime now condemned and convicted for looking into the tragic conditions in our prisons and standing up for prisoners and their families? Would you not have supported the same newspapers that you now refer to as CIA agents because they criticized the unacceptable conditions in our prisons?

"I do not want to mention the names of those who expressed joy, whether imprisoned or free, at the pressures these human rights organizations put on the conditions in our prisons during Shah’s time. Back then we were not the ruling party. Now that we are, we claim that these organizations are suddenly under the influence of the CIA."

Mousavi: All the monitoring and supervisory institutions are either not functional or have been forced to close

Mr. Mousavi voiced his concerns over the management system and the monitoring institutions and said, “All of our monitoring institutions are either not functional or are forced to close like the institution for Budget and Planning. That is why every day these "honourable" men who hold the power design projects like donating one million Tomans (more than $1000) to every child...."

People have grown wiser and more aware

Mousavi said, "Unfortunately there is no organisation left that would produce a report or undertake a project in this condition, although some "projects" are still undertaken very ‘well.’ They detain someone and free them on the condition that they publicly announce some stuff and if they don’t, then they’ll send them back to prison.”

Mousavi emphasised the importance of awareness and said, “Right now it seems that people have grown more aware of the political and social problems. Our society has evolved and people are wiser, and this wisdom and awareness is expanding by the day with an amazing speed. People analyse the situation in more depth but regardless, because all the damage is done in the name of Islam, a great harm come to the religion."

Karoubi in this regard added, “If a representative of people in the parliament, who these "honourable men" in the government too view as representative of people, speaks out in contradiction to the rulers in power, they threaten that they would refuse his candidacy for next elections. With such threats going around, how can a representative of people do his job without fear? What would the generations coming after us say about what we did? What would they write about what we do?

Request of Permit for Demonstrations on June 12

In the conclusion of this meeting, Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi insisted on organising a demonstration on 12 June based on Article 27 of the Constitution and Articles 30, 31, and 32 of the Rules for Parties. They asked all groups to submit their demand for a permit of demonstration to the Ministry of Interior Affairs.

Comments

[pessimist]

very good, I see that they are very up to date with the news, the bit about the 'mosquito', was a tidbit that I had seen and thought was very appropriate. And all the rest, such a pity they only have foreign medias to be heard, I hope it changes for them, at least they are still alive and still in Iran

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