Montazeri Remarks

According to Mousavi's Facebook, here are Montazeri's latest remarks:

Grand Ayatollah Montazeri in his latest remarks while stating the fact that one of the nastiest characteristics of human is “cruelty” pointed out the cruelty of some who are ignorant to the violation of people’s rights. Regarding the armed forces (Army, Basij and Revolutionary Guards) he said that: some think that because they have guns they should exercise the power of their guns and use it everywhere. In any society that wants to be obedient, its armed forces should not be cruel but rather be compassionate and merciful. He added that in armed forces there are only a handful of those who have no mercy and kindness but even this little number have jeopardised the integrity and dignity of others by committing the horrific crime in Kahrizah prison (where detainees were tortured and some even killed) in the events after the election.

Grand Ayatollah Montazeri while referring to those who claim to be acting according to the ideas of Imam Khomeini continued: “There is a remark made by Grand Ayatollah Khomeini that is rightfully very famous and it is that the armed forces should not get engaged in the politics and the reason behind it is also that since they are armed they may exploit their military forces and intimidate people for political reasons. The fact that these armed forces just like anyone else are entitled to the citizenship rights is correct and when there is an election held they too have the right to vote but it is wrong if they want to control the political scene like in an election. The gentlemen who constantly talk of Imam Khomeini and following his guidelines should be told: “Didn’t Imam Khomeini forbid the armed forces from engaging in politics?”

He added that a country should have skilled armed forces to deal with the enemies and those who lay hand on the country and the establishment but the military, police and security forces should not act in a way that people get negative impression about them and people should feel safe when they see them and don’t say that the armed forces and the police confront them instead of dealing with the enemies, instead of protecting the country and guarding the establishment they are after repressing the people and that the public should be afraid of them.

He reinstated that, the remark that is being made a lot lately is that preserving the system is a holy duty. Preserving the system is not a natural must in itself. It means that if the Islamic laws are abandoned in order to preserve the Islamic system, the system will not be preserved. Preserving the system is the precondition of preserving and executing the Islamic laws. If, un-Islamic actions take place with the excuse of preserving the system then neither the system will remain nor Islam.

Weren’t the primary slogans of the Revolution “Independence, Freedom, and Islamic Republic”? Independence means not being under the control of foreigners; and Freedom means that people should be free to express their opinion and have freedom of speech; not that be arrested and imprisoned the moment they express any opinion in opposition [to the government] and the situation gets so bad that people say we have freedom of speech but no freedom after the speech and we will be thrown into Evin prison! Republic also means that the government should be formed according to the people’s votes; and Islamic means since people are Muslims, the government should be based on the Islamic principles.