Shayan Ghajar

The outspoken daughter of Ayatollah Rafsanjani, Faezeh Hashemi, gave an interview to Rooz Online discussing her father’s political stances in the weeks following the Green Movement’s abortive protests on February 11. Dismissing rumors of a compromise between Rafsanjani and the hardliners in the government, Faezeh Hashemi says her father’s opinion is still in line with the principles of the Green Movement.

Ayatollah Rafsanjani, best described ideologically as a pragmatic moderate, has generated a great deal of speculation in recent weeks regarding his political leanings. In speeches to the Assembly of Experts, Rafsanjani made statements supporting the Supreme Leader but also urging a gentler approach to the Green Movement. These speeches have sparked rumors that Rafsanjani had entered into a compromise or back-door deal with the Supreme Leader and the government’s hardliner faction.

According to Rafsanjani’s daughter, however, these rumors are absolutely spurious. Her father, she says in the interview, has always guided his actions with respect to people’s rights, both before and after the Islamic Revolution. The accusations of compromise are, in her opinion, attempts by “the same people and media who did not hold healthy elections” to discredit the Rafsanjani family.

While Faezeh Hashemi was reluctant to offer predictions regarding the future of the Green Movement, her interview reveals much about its present state in the upper echelons of Iran’s political elites. Rafsanjani’s recent statements may have sent ambiguous signals regarding his political leanings, but it is highly unlikely his daughter would have said anything in her interview with Rooz Online that she didn’t check with Rafsanjani first.

Faezeh Hashemi’s statements, then, may be taken as a sign from Ayatollah Rafsanjani that he has by no means abandoned the Green Movement.

Faezeh Hashemi asserted that the possibility of any sort of compromise between her father and the hardliners is questionable. She said that unless the state devotes attention to the people’s basic rights and their grievances, the possibility of compromise is unlikely.

Regarding Ayatollah Rafsanjani’s political sympathies, Ms. Hashemi definitively stated that her father stands by his July 17, 2009 sermon as head of Tehran’s Friday prayers. In the sermon, Rafsanjani called for freedom of the press, the release of political prisoners, and the restoration of public confidence in the government by opening space in society for political discourse.

When pressed further by the Rooz Online correspondent to more clearly describe Rafsanjani’s ideological alignment in the post-election crisis, Ms. Hashemi said “[Rafsanjani’s] demands are the same demands as the Green Movement.” Insofar as they hold the same goals as the Green Movement, the Rafsanjani family may be considered Greens, Ms. Hashemi stated.