Arash Aramesh

Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, de facto leaders of the opposition Green Movement, asked their supporters June 10 not to participate in any demonstration on June 12, the first anniversary of the disputed presidential election.

According to Kaleme, Moussavi’s website, Moussavi and Karroubi issued a joint statement thanking the Iranian people for their participation in last year’s election, which was rigged “by unclean hands.” The two opposition leaders expressed their empathy with the Iranian people for the “great cost” that was paid by them to protect their rights.

According to the statement, Moussavi and Karroubi requested an official permit for holding a peaceful demonstration in Tehran weeks ago, but the Ministry of Interior never responded to their request. In their statement they write, “Now that there is only forty-eight hours left to the requested time of demonstrations, and thanks to reports from reformist representatives, in order to protect the lives and property of people, we announce that the aforementioned demonstration will not take place.”

The two former presidential candidates expressed in their statement their fear of mass violence by the coercive apparatus of the government and noted, “Considering the dark history of the past year in terms of quenching protestors, whose only crime was asking peacefully for their votes, and given the information [we have received] regarding the re-organization of hardliners and their henchmen to attack defenseless masses, we ask people and protestors to pursue their rights and seek their demands through less costly means.”

In recent weeks, hardliners and their supporters in the media started a new wave of intimidation against the opposition in order to dissuade them from participating in a large, anti-government rally.

The unwarranted execution of four Kurdish and one political prisoner last month, coupled with a wave of new articles and editorials in hardliner newspapers, such as Kayhan and Vatan Emrouz, have made many opposition activists believe that the government will not shy away from using brute force much worse than it did last year.

Kayhan poked fun at opposition leaders June 10, claiming that Moussavi, Karroubi, and former President Mohammad Khatami are actually very happy that the Interior Ministry denied their request because they were not going to be able to produce a crowd of more than a few hundred strong and that would cause yet another huge embarrassment for the Green movement.

Moussavi and Karroubi’s decision not to call on people to demonstrate in Tehran and other cities is a combination of both their fear of government retribution and the likelihood of a bloody crackdown, and the possibility that only a few thousand diehard supporters would show up, casting doubt on Green Movement’s popular support among Iran’s masses.