Protest Leader Ends Silence, Defying Tehran With a Meeting
By NAZILA FATHI
Iran’s opposition leader renewed his campaign for resistance on Thursday in a meeting with sympathetic politicians. It was his first public act of defiance since the Iranian New Year on March 21, when the authorities boasted that they had quelled the protest movement for good.
The opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, told the politicians, a small group of reformists in Parliament, that dissent went beyond street protests and that the Iranian establishment continued to lose legitimacy. The meeting was reported by the opposition Web site Iran Green Voice. No location was given.
“One of the problems is that the government thinks that it has ended the dissent by ending the street protests,” Mr. Moussavi said.
He said that people had lost confidence in the establishment because of widespread corruption, incompetence and mismanagement in the 10 months since he lost the presidential election in June to the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a suspiciously lopsided vote that Mr. Moussavi said had been rigged.
“I would have given into the fraudulent election results if the government had shown signs of competence,” Mr. Moussavi said. “But we did not see that.”
His comments appeared to be an effort to energize the movement and define a new strategy for its survival despite increasing government pressure. He said that the movement needed to expand its influence among certain social groups, like teachers and workers. “Our interests are intertwined with their interests, and we need to defend their rights,” he said.
Protests over the June election outcome morphed into the biggest opposition movement in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and the authorities curbed the protests with widespread arrests and intimidation.
They released a group of high-profile detainees before the New Year holiday. Human rights activists say hundreds more, including at least 35 journalists, remain in prison.