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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Ahmadinejad served Israels interests: Karroubi |
| 2010-06-10 |
| [Al Arabiya Latest] A year after hundreds of thousands of Iranians poured onto the streets to protest President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election on June 12, 2009, the Persian section of alarabiya.net held an exclusive interview with Iranian reformist and opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi, who has been distinguished along the past year with his frankness and strictness in refusing the legitimacy of Ahmadinejad and in revealing the torture to which the detainees were exposed to in Iran's prisons. Karroubi, who is one of the leading reformist trio in Iran that includes Mirhossein Mausavi and former president Mohammed Khatami, alleged that the detained protesters have been savagely raped in Iran's prisons. Karroubi, who was a presidential candidate in 2009 election, chaired the Martyrs Association that took care of the families of martyrs of the Iraq-Iran war and the revolution. He was also a former parliament speaker. The interview went as follows: *Mr Karroubi, less than a month from now, the Green Movement will be a year old, you and Mr Mousavi announced in February that you would determine the strategy of the Green Movement and inform the people about it. Could you please explain this strategy? There is a small introduction and it is that the regime made the issue so complicated and intricate. The basis for this Movement was protesting [last June's] election results. But it was also about other election results, because in recent years intractable forces had existed during other elections too. This recent election led to an explosion of the massive demonstrations and the people's protests. This is why the people's slogan was "Give our votes back." This is what we wanted too, as well as the formation of a trusted committee to examine the elections because we believes that if it were to be examined accurately and impartially, the election would have been annulled. The fraud in this election was so monumental that no amount of reasoning could explain it. Therefore at the heart of our Movement was the election fraud and the fact that we must try to hold fair and free elections. Unfortunately, because of the special events, the pressures and the imprisonments, up until now we have not dealt with the question of strategies in order to prevent an increase in the number of arrests. But at the very minimum, our demands are [an implementation] of the constitution which states that we can have free press and newspapers as well as the freedom to assemble without arms. We have made a request for holding free elections. This is the essence of our protest movement. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 OTOH WMF > RUSSIA: INDIA CAN BECOME A MEMBER OF SCO BUT NOT PAKISTAN. versies SAME > AHMADINEJAD THREATENS TO ATTEND SCO SUMMIT IN DEFIANCE OF RUSSIA + CHINA. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2010-06-10 03:29 |