Iran: two ex-leaders call for political changes

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Two former leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mohammad Khatami and Mir Hossein Moussavi, called for political reforms on Sunday to address the protest sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini.&nbsp ;

As the 44th anniversary of the February 1979 Islamic Revolution approaches, one of the country's main opponents, former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Moussavi, has called for a “fundamental change” in the political system, which is facing a “crisis of legitimacy”.

“What is evident today is widespread discontent”, for his part estimated the leader of the reform movement, former President Mohammad Khatami, in a statement issued on Sunday.

He hopes that the use of “non-violent civilian methods” can “force the state to change its approach and initiate reforms”.

“Iran and Iranians need and are ready for a fundamental change, the main lines of which are traced by the pure movement Women-Life-Freedom”, underlines for his part Mr. Moussavi in ​​a press release published on his site and taken up on Sunday by the local media.

It thus refers to the main slogan of the demonstrations organized following the death on September 16 of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd arrested by the morality police who accused her of having broken the strict dress code of the Republic. Islam.

For the opponent, this protest movement took place in a context of “interdependent crises” which are “economic, environmental, social, legitimacy, cultural and media”.

< p>Mir Hossein Moussavi proposes that a “free and fair referendum be organized on whether or not to draft a new constitution”, because the current “structure” of the system is “unsustainable”.

Unsuccessful presidential candidate of 2009, Mr. Moussavi had taken the lead in the protest against the re-election of outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, denouncing massive fraud.

Now aged 80, the former Prime Minister of 1981 in 1989 has been under house arrest in Tehran for 12 years with his wife Zahra Rahnavard, without having been charged.

As in the “People's Revolution in 1979”, “the population is entitled to fundamental in order […] to pave the way for freedom, justice, democracy and development” of Iran, he adds in his press release.

For his part , Mohammad Khatami, 79, laments that “there is no sign of the will of the power to reform and avoid errors”.

P resident from 1997 to 2005 before being forced into silence, he regrets that the population is “desperate for the system in place”.