Tehran, October 15: Iranian opposition leader Mir-Hossein Moussavi said in a statement Monday that financial sanctions against Iran would just hit the people and not the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“These sanctions would not be against a government but the people who have already been agonized by this government,” Moussavi said in a statement carried by several reformist websites.
Moussavi was referring to threats by world powers that renewed sanctions might be imposed if Iran did not suspend its uranium enrichment programmes.
“The agony caused by the (Ahmadinejad) government is enough for the people,” the opposition leader added.
Referring to the green opposition movement – green is the symbolic colour of Moussavi supporters – he said that despite the violence used against protestors and the arrest wave, the opposition to the government has incerased.
“The latest protest rallies showed that the opposition network is like a baby which is rapidly growing and will soon also learn to speak and become mature,” Moussavi said, referring to the protest demonstrations held on September 18 in Tehran and some other cities against Ahmadinejad.
The former prime minister however called on his supporters to avoid any radical measures which could damage the achievements so far made by the opposition.
Moussavi, former parliament speaker Mehdi Karroubi and the two ex-president Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani form the country’s opposition quartet.
The four have accused the government of fraud in the June 12 presidential election and hence not yet acknowledged the re-election of President Ahmadinejad.
While describing Iran as a democratic country, Ahmadinejuad said last week at the UN in New York that the presidential election was healthy.
The president has however called on the judiciary to prosecute the opposition leaders as the main initiators of the recent political unrests which led to the killing of more than 30 protestors. The opposition claims the death toll to be 72.
Over 4,000 Ahmadinejad critics were arrested following the presidential election of whom more than 100 are still jailed on charges of having planned to overthrow the Islamic system.
The opposition claims the number of detainees, including former reformist ministers and parliament deputies, to be over 200.
—–Agencies