Iran Interview: Karroubi Hits Back at the Regime "We Will Surpass These Hardships"

In an interview with Saham News, Mehdi Karroubi has responded to the regime's continuing charges of "sedition":

In the past years, they used to excuse their inefficiencies and failures by referring to the corrupt regime of Shah. Now they have pretexts such as the conspiracies by United States and Israel to cover their violations, mistakes, and ineffectiveness. They constantly use phrases like "soft" war, combatant [against God], the "fifth pillar" [spy], ...corruption, and traitor in their speeches."

Karroubi took specific ai, at the statements of Ayatollah Jannati, the head of the Guardian Council: "When I hear his remarks, I remember the Shah's remarks. Instead of wearing a crown, he has a turban on his head.

Karroubi continued, "Actions of people matter. Turban or crown, or suit or cassock, is not the criterion. At least the Shah was not using people's religion for his remarks but unfortunately he [Jannati] is giving orders as a clergymen and from the podium of Friday Prayer. Is this how they wanted to serve people by changing the corrupt regime to the Islamic Republic?"

Karroubi then pursued his list of charges against the regime:

It is the performance and management of the past 20 years (since the passing of Ayatollah Khomeini) that has brought the county's situation to this point. Unfortunately, these gentlemen thought they can rule the county by establishing a security atmosphere in the society, closing down newspapers, imprisoning students and reporters, forcing professors to retire, imprisoning political, social, and human rights activists, and bringing armed forces into elections and the political scene of the country.

All these methods, suppressions, standing against the people's votes and views, and ignoring their definite rights caused this opposition movement to start in 2009, and people were killed for demanding their rights and were sent to prisons and paid the price for not letting the revolution --- for which they had fought --- lose its direction.

It was your management that created this event. You are after establishing police atmosphere in the society. It appears that you gain from this atmosphere. The problem is with the totalitarianism and dogmatism of a camp that, with its poor performance, is imposing severe pressure on the people. The burden of this mismanagement is on the shoulders of the people who are in difficulty from financial pressures, joblessness, and inflation.

God willing, and with people's support, we will surpass these hardships with the hope of having a day that we can have politics with positive view, without totalitarianism and only for the sake of people and their wellbeing.