Thirty-six Iranian political prisoners have issued a statement calling on
"the Green Movement and the reformists" to support the elections only if they
are "open and free" and in any other case to refrain from allowing their
participation to "legitimize an illegal election process."
In an announcement issued on Saturday November 5, the
prisoners refer to the Iranian Parliament as a "sham" akin to the Egyptian
Parliament during the rule of former president Hosni Mubarak.
"For a long time, the blatant interference of the government, and especially
that of security and military forces, have turned elections into an elaborately
staged show" the political prisoners write. "And the resulting Parliament has
become a sham parliament, one that is even unable to defend its own rights and
to ascertain the execution of its own legislation."
The prisoners continue: "Parliament has been humiliated on several occasions by
the executive branch, and the president and has remained silent in the face of
all attacks against the rights of its representatives."
The coming parliamentary elections in March have been cause for concern for the
Islamic Republic establishment, because allegations of vote fraud in the
presidential elections of 2009 led to widespread protests. The protests caused a
deep rift in the establishment, and numerous reformists were arrested and
sentenced to stiff prison terms. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's chief opponents in the
presidential race, MirHosein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, have been under house
arrest since last February
Most recently, the government announced that three major reformist organizations
are banned from official participation in the parliamentary elections.
Reformists are poised to boycott the elections because the government has not
met their conditions: free and open elections, allowing open political activity,
and releasing political prisoners.
