Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Open letter to Akbar Ganji - by Roozbeh Farahanipour

Marze Por Gohar Party:

The following is the English translation of MPG’s open letter to Akbar Ganji. Akbar Ganji is a former unrepentant Islamic Republic Intelligence Ministry official who used to serve as an interrogator. During the first decade of the Islamic Revolution his name was also well known as the leader of assault teams against women who used press thumbtacks into the foreheads of women for showing too much hair. Later Ganji was promoted to a high-ranking position within the murderous Intelligence Ministry. In the past few years, with very suspicious motivations, Akbar Ganji, claiming to be a dissident reformist, has tried to place himself at the forefront of the Iranian democratic movement.

“Let this body not live if there is no Iran” – Ferdowsi

During the last months I had kept silent regarding your recent situation hoping that the latest actions would be sincerely aimed at attaining your own freedom and seeking forgiveness from the Iranian people for your past crimes; however, your recent letter addressed to Mullah Hossein-ali Montazari has forced me to break my silence and remind you of several historical facts for the record.

Let me clarify that due to my strong belief in Iran and my respect for the will of the nation, I would not permit myself to speak on behalf of the people unlike you, your cohorts and the monopolists of the Islamic Republic. The following therefore shall be the opinion of myself, activists and members of the Marze Por Gohar Party, and those who share common beliefs with us.

We cannot remain indifferent in the face of your project of purifying the image of the murderous Ayatollah Khomenei on which you and your colleagues have been working on for several years. You cannot deny the fact that it was Khomenei himself who laid the foundations for the very same injustices that you are currently referring to, as the father of the Islamic Republic. The “mullah” Montazari to whom you are addressing your grievances and who according to your own admission was the architect of the doctrine of the “Guardianship of Islamic ruler”, is himself much more dangerous and ruthless then the current “Supreme Leader” Ali Khamenei. Montazari promoted this doctrine while he was selected to replace Khomenei as the Supreme Leader and criticized the doctrine only when he was passed over by Khamenei.

Montazari was originally in charge of exporting the Islamic Revolution today referred to as International Terrorism to places as far as Lebanon, Eastern and North Africa, Philippines and etc. and according to his own memoirs he had been instrumental in the ruthless repression of opponents of the regime. Young people were even executed for jokingly referring to Montazari as a popular cartoon character. I sincerely hope that the democratic movement of the Iranian people will soon come to fruition so that the nation will prosecute your “hero” mullah in a court of law for crimes against humanity and the national interest of Iran.

Mr. Ganji, you must remember that even though you and some of your colleagues who have committed terrible crimes in the past and are today confessing to some of those crimes as mistakes, you all must know that when it comes to crimes against the national interest, a whole generation and inflicting irreparable damage to a culture and country, there will be no differentiation between crimes and “mistakes”.

You may believe that today’s problems are due to a “new monarchy” in our country, but I must emphasize that from our point of view, the problem is the whole clerical establishment which you have been part of and the reform-proof constitution which cannot be amended or secularized unless it is totally and completely replaced. Incidentally, this abomination of a constitution was written by Montazari and a few other fundamentalist mullahs like him.

Following your ongoing campaign of restoring Khomenei’s image, you are claiming that it was Khomenei who caused the overthrow of the Shah; whereas be believe it was the Iranian nation who brought about the downfall of the last Iranian king and Khomenei merely catered to the slogans of the popular movement in order to hijack a democratic revolution and establish a religious dictatorship.

You have also claimed to have initiated the call for ouster of Khamenei, the “Supreme Leader.” I wish you were present during the five day uprising in 1999, when we and the people were shouting “Khoemenei shame on you, abandon your crown.” I wish you would remember that it was your collogues who were trying to silence our slogan by warning the people on your loud speakers not to follow the demonstrators lead by MPG, calling them counter-revolutionaries. It was during the same period that mullah Abdullah Nouri, another one of your collogues, abandoned the demonstrations to protest the insults against the Khamenei and I myself who was arrested following that event was charged with interrupting Nouri’s speech and insulting the “Supreme Leader.” Your slogan of “Khamenei must go” is not by any means anything new, but the problem of our nation today is not just the ouster of Khamenei, Khatami, Hashemi, Kharoubi and Montazari. Mr. Ganji, you all must go.

When Saeed Hajarian, the high ranking intelligence official, and your good friend, had not yet been fired from the intelligence Ministry over misuse of US Dollars counterfeited by the Intelligence Ministry and narcotics in their possession, he was busy working on improving the fearsome intelligence apparatus of the regime. If during the late nineteen nineties he and his team were still working in the Intelligence Ministry would he have portrayed himself as a dissident as a he did and would he still have started his deceitful populist campaign, or would he have rather continued in his job including the international terror network of the Islamic Republic and serving the regime?

You must know that during my interrogations in 1999 the officer of the Intelligence ministry conducting the interrogation clearly told me that nobody is allowed to cross beyond the approved red lines represented by you Mr. Ganji and the mullah Abdullah Nouri and your respective positions.

I know that you are well aware and I must remind you again that huge numbers of political prisoners have been executed for daring to speak their minds while not even being allowed to write a simple will, let alone a letter, pamphlet or a book. You know also how many young innocent girls were executed in the streets for possessing instruments perceived to have a use as a weapon. I have also personally known several prisoners who were executed for going on hunger strikes inside the prison while none of you uttered a single word in their defense.

These days when we see your letters, articles, pamphlets, photos and messages being supposedly sent from your jail cell we only conclude that even in jail you have privileged position. Writing a two page, single spaced letter to mullah Montazari while you are on a forty-two day hunger strike and at the same time undergoing selective surgery on your knee in one of the most modern hospitals in the country approaches outrageous dark comedy. All you and a few other privileged prisoners have accomplished is to have whitewashed the human rights violations of the Islamic Republic in the eyes of the United Nations and western countries, succeeding in omission of the Islamic Republic from the UN blacklist of worst human rights violators in 2003.

The “republican manifesto” which you have supposedly composed inside a solitary cell, was also not a new phenomenon. Maybe you never heard of or read about the publicized ideas of the late Dr. Shapour Bakhtiar or Dariush Forouhar who were brutally stabbed and killed by Islamic Republic assassins for the very same ideas you are now supposedly espousing. You know very well that your friends inside the intelligence Ministry assassinated hundreds of opponents of the regime inside and outside of the country for voicing the same ideas long before you came up with your manifesto.

Your recent publicity campaign has certainly succeeded in diverting attention of international human rights organizations away from the brutal assassination of my comrade in arms, Dr. Kasra Vafadari, in Parsi May 2005 and the unbelievably brutal assassination of the young Iranian Kurdish prisoner, Shovaneh, who was dragged through the streets with a rope around his neck tied to a vehicle last week, and the execution of two young teenagers in Mashad for homosexual acts that took place a few days ago.

I would like remind you that forgiving somebody such as Khamenei, Khatami, Kharoubi, Montazari and high ranking officials of a criminal regime for having committed serious crimes including murder, torture rape, and massacres is not only up to a future democratic government with proper judicial organs and procedures but also up to the families of the victims.

Following the defeat of Hitler’s army in Stalingrad several of his criminal Nazi generals decided to save the Nazi regime and became die-hard opponents of Adolf Hitler, but it was too late. It is better that the founders and commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Corp, the officials of the Intelligence Ministry and other organs of repression within the regime pay attention to these issues. If there is somebody who claims that he is not a party to the crimes of this regime anymore he must first publicly confess to his crimes and then enter the ranks of democratic opposition as a simple activist rather then a champion and leader and hope that the nation will forgive him. Some day the huge monument around Khomenei’s grave that has been built by means of wealth and upon the blood of the Iranian people, will be a museum of the crimes of the Islamic Republic against humanity. I hope this day comes soon.

Down with the Islamic Republic

Long Live Iran

Roozbeh Farahanipour Chairman Marze Por Gohar Party

Iranians for a secular republic

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