PARIS: Iran’s former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, who was the focus of a 2009 mass protest movement sparked by disputed presidential elections, on Thursday urged the clerical leadership to step down after the “crime” of its deadly crackdown on protests.
“In what language should the people say that they do not want this system and do not believe your lies? Enough is enough. The game is over,” said Mousavi, who has since 2011 been under house arrest, in a statement shared by his Kalame media outlet.
Mousavi claimed to have won the 2009 presidential elections against incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, arguing that the hard-liner’s victory was rigged and sparking vast protest rallies in his support known as the Green Movement.
In his statement, Mousavi said the crackdown on protests this month — seen as the biggest such movement in Iran since those 2009 giant rallies — was a “black page in the history of our nation” and a “great betrayal and a crime.”
Rights groups have verified thousands of deaths but fear tens of thousands could have been killed in total by security forces.
Mousavi said Iranians would have “no choice” but to protest again and security forces “will sooner or later refuse to take the burden” of suppressing the movement.
“Put down your gun and step down from power so that the nation itself can lead this land to freedom and prosperity,” he said.
With Washington not ruling out military strikes in the wake of the crackdown, Mousavi said “a constitutional referendum” should be held and also made clear he opposed “foreign intervention.”
Mousavi was prime minister from 1981 to 1989 under the presidency of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who became the Islamic republic’s supreme leader after the death of revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Even in the 80s, Khamenei was long seen as a rival of Mousavi with the then premier regarded as a more moderate figure within the system.
One of few key figures to hold power in the 1980s without being a cleric, Mousavi was the last to serve as premier, a post which was scrapped in Iran’s revised constitution after Khomeini’s death.
‘Enough is enough. The game is over,’ Iran ex-PM tells leadership
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‘Enough is enough. The game is over,’ Iran ex-PM tells leadership
- Mir Hossein Mousavi: ‘Put down your gun and step down from power so that the nation itself can lead this land to freedom and prosperity’
- Mousavi claimed to have won the 2009 presidential elections against incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, arguing that the hard-liner’s victory was rigged
Tunisia’s famed blue-and-white village threatened after record rains
- The one-time home of French philosopher Michel Foucault and writer Andre Gide, the village is protected under Tunisian preservation law, pending a UNESCO decision on its bid for World Heritage status
SIDI BOU SAID, Tunisia: Perched on a hill overlooking Carthage, Tunisia’s famed blue-and-white village of Sidi Bou Said now faces the threat of landslides, after record rainfall tore through parts of its slopes.
Last week, Tunisia saw its heaviest downpour in more than 70 years. The storm killed at least five people, with others still missing.
Narrow streets of this village north of Tunis — famed for its pink bougainvillea and studded wooden doors — were cut off by fallen trees, rocks and thick clay. Even more worryingly for residents, parts of the hillside have broken loose.
“The situation is delicate” and “requires urgent intervention,” Mounir Riabi, the regional director of civil defense in Tunis, recently told AFP.
“Some homes are threatened by imminent danger,” he said.
Authorities have banned heavy vehicles from driving into the village and ordered some businesses and institutions to close, such as the Ennejma Ezzahra museum.
- Scared -
Fifty-year-old Maya, who did not give her full name, said she was forced to leave her century-old family villa after the storm.
“Everything happened very fast,” she recalled. “I was with my mother and, suddenly, extremely violent torrents poured down.”
“I saw a mass of mud rushing toward the house, then the electricity cut off. I was really scared.”
Her Moorish-style villa sustained significant damage.
One worker on site, Said Ben Farhat, said waterlogged earth sliding from the hillside destroyed part of a kitchen wall.
“Another rainstorm and it will be a catastrophe,” he said.
Shop owners said the ban on heavy vehicles was another blow to their businesses, as they usually rely on tourist buses to bring in traffic.
When President Kais Saied visited the village on Wednesday, vendors were heard shouting: “We want to work.”
One trader, Mohamed Fedi, told AFP afterwards there were “no more customers.”
“We have closed shop,” he said, adding that the shops provide a livelihood to some 200 families.
- Highly unstable -
Beyond its famous architecture, the village also bears historical and spiritual significance.
The village was named after a 12th-century Sufi saint, Abu Said Al-Baji, who had established a religious center there. His shrine still sits atop the hill.
The one-time home of French philosopher Michel Foucault and writer Andre Gide, the village is protected under Tunisian preservation law, pending a UNESCO decision on its bid for World Heritage status.
Experts say solutions to help preserve Sidi Bou Said could include restricting new development, building more retaining walls and improving drainage to prevent runoff from accumulating.
Chokri Yaich, a geologist speaking to Tunisian radio Mosaique FM, said climate change has made protecting the hill increasingly urgent, warning of more storms like last week’s.
The hill’s clay-rich soil loses up to two thirds of its cohesion when saturated with water, making it highly unstable, Yaich explained.
He also pointed to marine erosion and the growing weight of urbanization, saying that construction had increased by about 40 percent over the past three decades.
For now, authorities have yet to announce a protection plan, leaving home and shop owners anxious, as the weather remains unpredictable.
