No Iranian Leader at the World’s Largest Gathering of Freedom Lovers

Rooz Online

Even though Iran’s former two-time pro-reform president Mohammad Khatami failed to leave the country to attend Nelson Mandela’s memorial ceremony, president Hassan Rouhani too did not attend the gathering in Johannesburg - reported to have been the largest influx of world leaders – as nor did foreign minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif. Rouhani and Khatami did not join Ahmadinejad on the trip.

When Mohammad Shariatmadari, president Rouhani’s executive deputy, was announced to represent the Islamic republic at Mandela’s memorial, waves of criticism in the media, including threats, poured in against him even though he has been accepted by many groups and factions as the best choice for the event. Rightwing hardliners did everything they could to prevent the leader of Iran’s reformers from attending the event, or get the spotlight even if just for a few media lines or moments, which they executed through the principlists’ mouthpieces.

Displeasure

According to reports, the irritation that rightwing hardliners displayed over Khatami is so strong that they even refrained from publishing or posting photographs that appeared in reformist media about signing attendance books for Mandela’s passing. The attacks came from the media, rightwing politicians etc and included the Raja news agency.

The words of hardline Majlis representative Hamid Rasai, who is on record to have started a number of physical brawls in the parliament, perhaps demonstrated the depth of the anger. He seems not to have been content that Khatami was not going to Johannesburg and in an interview with Fars news agency made these remarks: “Because of his role in the 2009 sedition (a term Iranian hardliners use for the post-2009 presidential election protests by the Green Movement), Mr. Khatami will not only not attend the ceremony as the representative of the Islamic republic of Iran but he cannot go because he is not recognized to be an anti-colonial personality. The resemblance between Khatami and personalities such as Nelson Mandela is not clear because Mandela was anti-American while Khatami today is pro-America. The Americans have never been happy about Mandela’s ascent to power while they have been striving to push people like Khatami to power.”

According to Rasai, whom even Ahmadinejad’s supporters keep at their bay, “Efforts by the pro-American reformist movement to link Khatami with Mandela are carried out for the purpose of cleansing him from appearing pro-American because their media need Mr. Khatami and want to first rehabilitate him and then return him back to power in the future.” He continued, “They (reformers) believe that Mr. Rouhani’s administration will fail miserably in its first term because this is not an administration that can deliver. Therefore, they want to have a person amongst themselves to replace Rouhani. They will use Mr. Rouhani to exonerate Khatami and then use him at the right moment. Mr. Khatami of course does not have a positive international travel record because of his meetings with people like George Soros and some Arab sheikhs of the region. Because of this, security agencies must control and monitor him.”

Mr. Khatami had publicly expressed hope that he would travel to Mandela’s memorial ceremony.

Earlier, nine political activists close to reformers had written a letter to president Rouhani requesting that political prisoners be released and the house arrests of leaders of the Green Movement be lifted. They had also requested that he arrange for Khatami to represent Iran at Mandela’s funeral ceremony. The letter had been signed by Ibrahim Asqarzadeh, Elias Hazrati, Mohammad-Javad Haghshenas, Fayaz Zahedi, Reza Noroozadeh, Saeed Leylaz, Ismail Doosti, Masood Soltanifar and Nemat Ahmadi.