Demands of the Green Movement: Moussavi vs. “five expatriate intellectuals”
Other than condemning the “people in the streets” for calling for “too much” freedom and telling them how to behave and what to chant, the first statements from persons claiming to speak in the name of the Movement came in January 2010.
In his Statement #17 issued 1 January, Moussavi listed several of what he called the “demands of the Green Movement”. Boiled down to their essentials after sorting through the results of Moussavi’s tendency to say not much of anything of substance with way too many words, are these:
1. The administration held accountable to the people, the parliament and the judiciary system in response to its incompetence and ineffectiveness.
2. The legislation of new and clear election laws in a way that it would regain people’s trust in the free and fair elections without meddling and interference.
3. The release of all political prisoners and restoration of their dignity and honour.
4. The release of the banned press and media and letting the shut down newspapers to publish again.
5. Recognizing people’s rights for having legal demonstrations and forming parties and groups and abiding to the 27th principle of the constitution.
2. The legislation of new and clear election laws in a way that it would regain people’s trust in the free and fair elections without meddling and interference.
3. The release of all political prisoners and restoration of their dignity and honour.
4. The release of the banned press and media and letting the shut down newspapers to publish again.
5. Recognizing people’s rights for having legal demonstrations and forming parties and groups and abiding to the 27th principle of the constitution.
On 4 January, “five expatriate intellectuals” (Abdolkarim Soroosh, Mohsen Kadivar, Ataollah Mohajerani, Abdolali Bazargan and Akbar Ganji) living in the United States of America also issued a version of the “demands of the Green Movement”:
1. Resignation of Ahmadinejad; another election under supervision of an independent organization; cancellation of screening by the Guardian Council; and formation of an independent commission.
2. Release of all political prisoners; investigation of cases of torture and assault of the protestors over in open trials with the presence of juries; the right to select and have lawyers; and compensation of the victims and their families.
3. Freedom of all media including press, audio and video media and cyber media; newspapers closed by the government reopened; independent and non-governmental satellite television channels; removal of extensive filtering of internet; clearing state-run televisions and radios from liars.
4. Recognizing the right of NGO’s to operate; recognizing the right of people, unions, and women's right activist and other groups to hold peaceful demonstrations as allowed by article 27 of the constitution.
5. Independence of universities; university affairs left to academics; removal of military and paramilitary forces from the universities; shutting down the High Commission for Cultural Revolution.
6. Immediate trials of the torturers, the operatives and the masterminds of the past crimes especially over the past few months.
7. Giving independence to the judiciary by holding election for its head and clearing the judiciary of unfair puppet judges and stopping show trials.
8. The removal of armed and security forces from the culture, politics and economics scenes.
9. Giving political and financial independence to the seminary schools from the government; stopping the practice of buying the Friday prayer Imams for political goals.
10. All top ranked positions become elected ones with limited terms.
The second set is more extensive in scope as well as in number than the former. But both treat the “system” (as Rahbar-e Enghelab Ali Hosseini Khamenei calls it), or the “ruling establishment” (as former president Mohammad Khatami calls it) as legitimate. In effect, both support and legitimize the regime, though Moussavi’s much more so than the other.
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