Mousavi: "Objecting to lies and cheating is your right"

In the name of God, the compassionate and merciful, We are all from God, and one day we will return to Him [A Koranic quote, that signify readiness for death]

The heart-wrenching news of martyrdom of a group of protestors, against widespread cheating in recent elections, has cast a pall of silence and sadness over our society. Opening fire on people, militarizing the city, spreading fear, provoking [the public] and power displays are all illegitimate children of the unlawfulness which we face and it is bewildering that the perpetrators of these acts accuse others of this.

To those who call people lawless, for expressing their opinions, I say that the biggest act of lawlessness is indifference [to the public] and contravention of the explicit [text] of article 27 of the constitution [allowing public demonstrations] by the government in not issuing permits for peaceful gatherings. Do revolutionary people who, with gatherings like these, brought you and us out of the dark history of Shah's tyranny must be beaten and wounded and be threatened with force?

I, as a mourner, invite the people to self-restraint. The country belongs to you. The revolution and the government are your inheritances. Objecting to lies and cheating is your right.

Be hopeful in exercising your rights and do not allow those, who try to instill fear in you to dissuade you, to make you angry. Continue to avoid violence in your protests and treat the disproportionate actions of the security forces as broken hearted parents would their children.

Having said that, I expect that security forces will not allow memories of these days to cause irreparable harm in their relationship with the people. That they [security forces] are not informing the families of the martyred, the wounded, and the arrested, and are keeping them hidden and in limbo will not aid in restoration of peace and will antagonize [people's] emotions. Arbitrary arrests lead to loss of respect and authority of security forces in the mind of the people and the society. I ask the Almighty to be compassionate towards these martyrs and to give them the highest of honors, and for their stricken families I wish patience and fulfillment of their dreams.

Mir Hossein Moussavi

link: The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan