TEHRAN, Iran – A prominent Iranian conservative respected by supporters of the country's Islamic regime issued a blistering condemnation of the ruling establishment and its supreme leader on Monday, adding an unexpected voice to a growing chorus of criticism over the bloody aftermath of Iran's disputed election.
The apparent change of heart on the part of Mohammad Nourizad, a filmmaker and activist praised until recently by hardliners, was a surprising sign that the lethal force used by the government against pro-reform protesters has infuriated even some of the government's supporters and turned them into critics.
His letter, published on several Web sites, was exceptional for its harsh language and for taking the risky step of explicitly targeting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
"As commander in chief of the armed forces, you didn't treat people well after the election. Your agents opened fire, killed the people, beat them and destroyed and burnt their property. Your role in this can't be ignored," the letter reads. "Your apology can cool down the wrath of the people."
If once he saw Khamenei as a political savior, Nourizad wrote, he now sees that Iran lags behind its neighbors and shows no sign of allowing freedom of speech. "As the country's most powerful figure, not a single time have you admitted a fault," he writes.
Nourizad called on Khamenei to apologize for ordering the crackdown against protesters who took to the streets in June after a national election returned the hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to power. The pro-reform camp says the government faked the election and denied victory to the rightful winner, pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.
The opposition says at least 72 protesters were killed in the violence that followed the election, while government officials maintain that only 36 died in the unrest — the worst in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought the current regime to power. Thousands were arrested, and the regime's opponents have charged some detainees were tortured to death in prison.
On Monday, reformer Mahdi Karroubi, who also ran in the presidential election, refused to retract charges that protesters were tortured and raped, even though a government panel exonerated the regime and recommended that Karroubi himself be charged for making the allegations.
The three-member panel, which included the country's top prosecutor and the deputy head of the judiciary, said in a report Saturday that there was no evidence to back up Karroubi's charges, and that documents he had submitted to substantiate the claims were "fabricated and aimed at misleading public opinion."
Karroubi insisted in a letter posted on his Web site Monday that he pointed to "the right place" with his charges, which he called a "disgrace" for the Islamic Republic.
Over the past week, security forces have raided and sealed Karroubi's office and that of Mousavi, the leading opposition figure, confiscating documents and detaining several aides who were collecting reports of abuse from released protesters, according to Karroubi's Web site and several other reformist sites.
The authorities released Ali Reza Beheshti, a top Mousavi aide who hails from one of the Islamic Republic's most prominent families, on Sunday, several days after he was detained. Beheshti is the son of the late Ayatollah Mohammad Hossein Beheshti, a prominent figure from the 1979 revolution and one of the architects of the country's Islamic regime.
A member of the Islamic Republic's most famous family — Hasan Khomeini, grandson of the iconic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the Islamic Revolution — met Beheshti at his home immediately after his release in a move seen as a snub of the ruling system. Khomeini recently refused to receive Ahmadinejad at his grandfather's masouleum to show his disdain for the hardline president.
Iran's most prominent dissident cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, said Monday that the small number of top religious figures known as "marja taqlid," or "models for emulation" had the responsibility to come out publicly against the regime and the "crimes" he said it had committed "in the name of Islam."
The events were a "warning bell" for the clerics, who have historically "given refuge to people against crimes and violations committed by governments," Montazeri said Monday.
Six jailed protesters went on trial in Tehran on charges of rioting and plotting to topple the ruling Islamic system. The hearing is the latest session of a mass trial that began Aug. 1 in which more than 100 opposition supporters are being tried for allegedly plotting to use the protests to overthrow the clerical leadership.
State TV said the indictment against the six focused on "spreading false reports via the Internet to provoke unrest." One detainee, Abdollah Momeni, pleaded guilty to the charges and asked for mercy, the TV station said.
Iran's reformist and moderate parties have denounced the hearings as "ridiculous show," saying confessions were obtained under duress.
Fashion Week in New York. AP/Louis Lanzano
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