Mehdi Karroubi, Lone Cleric, Emerges to Defy Iran's Leaders

nytimes.com:

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia A short midlevel cleric, with a neat white beard and a clergyman's calm bearing, Mehdi Karroubi has watched from his home in Tehran in recent months as his aides have been arrested, his offices raided, his newspaper shut down. He himself has been threatened with arrest and, indirectly, the death penalty.

Read the whole story: nytimes.com

Comments

[MARNIE2]

10:26 AM on 10/27/2009

....SOMEONE ...WITH BOLDNESS.....DEFYING THE COLLECTIVE ..the....[REGIME].... !......remember
the courage it took for the Iranian people to stand up to the hostile regime ! [shame election's ]
woes of injustice placed on the Iranian people ...in mock trials ! INTERNATIONAL LEADERS ..MUTE!
......YOU GO ...LONE CLERIC....IF IT BE GOD'S WILL ...the Regime will toppel !.....God is always in control... !

[Mollabaji]

07:23 AM on 10/26/2009

I don't really care as to whether ihe is "lone citique" or lone fool. Take him to the proper court and let him speak his mind and offer any evidence to support his claims, publicly. Iranian regime has been just too lenient and tolerant to let the questions linger on and on. give us evidence!

[wereeverywhere]

01:16 PM on 10/26/2009

You're very good at being wrong; so much so that whatever's 180 degrees away from your point is probably correct. Thank you so much for being on the other side and showing the details of reactionary thought.

Of all the sins of IRI, and they're legion, leniency is not one of them. It takes someone who rejoices at repression and censorship to even entertain such an absurd notion. Instead of calling for yet more of a clampdown, one possible solution would be to unleash the Iranian press to independently investigate police, judicial, and ministerial misconduct. (Of course that's an impossibility given the structure of IRI right now.) Really the ultimate solution is marg bar dictator.

[CoronaDischarge]

10:17 PM on 10/24/2009

A man of conscience is of course a problem for a regime that is propped up on deceit and treasonous disregard for the rights of the people it would pretend to have been elected by.

Will they be forced to icepick this relic of the Revolution him like Stalin did with Trotsky?

[Mollabaji]

02:06 AM on 10/24/2009

There is only one quotation attributed to him and that one on a web site. The rest, the New York Times repeats the usual propaganda and tells stories many times told before. Only the uninformed and those Iranians who live in the U.S. who pretend to know, offer their biased analysis. Not worth the paper it is printed on.

[wereeverywhere]

03:31 AM on 10/24/2009

Absurd. You shills are so funny in your desperation. He's been audaciously outspoken since the election debacle, putting himself at great risk. He refused to back down on the rape charges of dissidents, for instance. He's upset at what's become of his allies carted off to Evin and at the domestic militarization of IRI in general; his attributed comments would agree with his past behavior.

Nice attempt at conspiracy theory on the fly, though. Since IRI can't shut down NY Times like those pesky papers in Iran, it rings a little hollow to engage in media critique at their behest.

[Khirad]

09:42 PM on 10/23/2009

From the article - comment:

“I am not only unworried about this court,” he wrote. “I wholeheartedly welcome it since I will use it to express my concerns regarding the national and religious beliefs of the Iranian people and the ideas of Imam Khomeini, and clearly reveal those who are opposed to these concerns.”.
“It will be a good opportunity for me to talk again about crimes that would make the shah look good”
-
Is it just me or do I see allusions to a little bit of Golsorkhi here?

---

“I said to myself, ‘Where indeed have we arrived 30 years after the revolution?’ ”
-
With this he is echoing what many a reformist and scholar has remarked. Much has been accomplished, but, isn't it time for the Islamic Republic to mature out of its adolescent-like rambunctiousness? (to be euphemistic about chain-murders and rape and purgings, etc.)

[wereeverywhere]

01:03 AM on 10/24/2009

I don't see IRI as being equipped to get out of its *ahem* rambunctiousness. Its theocratic structure and its legacy of political problem solving by jail, theft, and death aren't much to build on. I know the green movement calls for reform but they won't be able to solve anything without a social revolution ultimately- a marg bar dictator directed at the state itself rather than the thug de jour.

[Roozbeh]

10:34 AM on 10/23/2009

When seventh Imam of Shia' Islam, Musa Kazim, passed through Iranian main land on a journey from Iraq to Mashhad in Northwest Iran, he fathered 735 children. His son Imam Reza is buried in Mashhad and his burial site is the holiest Shia' location in Iran.

Anyway, that is why so many Mullahs and non-Mullahs have the name 'Mousavi' as part of their last name, for example, Khomeini Mousavi.

A Mullah of an Arab lineage, all Shia' Imams are Arabs, uses a BLACK turban while an ordinary Iranian Mullah carries a WHITE traditional Muslim headdress.

Mr. Mehdi Karoubi is a brave Iranian cleric of a non-Arab mentality.

[Furby2]

06:19 PM on 10/23/2009

Brave man.

[Khirad]

09:36 PM on 10/23/2009

Indeed. Forgive me if I go off too much in my above post, Roozbeh.