Why is NO ONE in the media talking about the 1988 Iranian Massacre?

Are we really supposed to sympathize with Mousavi?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir-Hossein_Mousavi

Mir-Hossein Mousavi was a student studying architecture during the Shah's regime at Tehran University. Two years after the revolution (1981), he was nominated as the Prime Minister by Khomeini. He was responsible, as head of the Council of Cultural Revolution, for shutting down the entire university system for four years. Starting in 1988, on the orders of Khomeini, a council was formed, with Mousavi as a member, to revise the regime's constitution to drastically increase the powers of the supreme leader.

Mousavi's socialist ideology became very apparent during the 1980s when he initiated Islamic Socialist policies such as subsidized food coupons, oil coupons and converting private enterprises into government controlled entities. Mr. Mousavi ordered the mass-executions of 1980-81, as well as the summer 1988 executions of over 30,000 political prisoners, who were then buried in mass graves.


Moreover, why is the massacre of 1988 a widely unknown event in modern history? Why was this criminal allowed to become a cult of personality in Iran?

Confusion ah

Maybe because it's about the hope that the Iranian people can finally thrown off the shackles of theocratic rule. It appears that things may have expanded far beyond anger at a stolen election, and shifted to anger at a corrupt and repressive regime.

I swear, some of you just live to whip out your purity test, don't you?

Which, by the way, is the color of Mousavi's party.

Between the people telling us not to "get involved" with Iran (even though the US isn't doing anything and we're just talking on a message board) and the people telling us to be against Mousavi, I hardly know what to believe.

If it were me, I'd be fighting all of TPTB in Iran. The problem is that information about the 1988 massacre is held back from these young voters. They're being manipulated and deceived.

The Iranian people revolting right now are incredibly brave.

That doesn't mean they aren't misguided, either.

It doesn't take much to Google Mousavi's wiki and read up about his past.

Sorry, I'm going to call shenanigans on anyone around here who says what they'd do in that sort of situation. The pompous declarations of armchair Jack Bauers or Dukes of Wellington or whatthehellever talking about The Correct Thing To Do when push comes to shove - without the least possibility of ever having to put their money where their mouth is - bore me.

Because I know what I'd do in their situation.

You're not them. You really have no clue what their situation is, and you certainly have no firsthand experience with it.

Quite the assumptions you've just made.

You said "I know what I'd do in their situation." Obviously since you're saying that, you're not in their situation. That being true, the fact is you have no real idea what you would do in their situation. Now, you may know what you would do in whatever situation you imagine them to be in, but the reality and your imagination are different things.

The Mullahs had this all worked out, and everything's going according to plan. Got it.

Good thing I brought my hat... :tinfoilhat:

Is the most popular political figure in Iran right now?

And don't give me the lesser of two/three evils line anymore, please.

Doesn't mean it isn't true.

You mean the one where you insinuated I'm a conspiracy loon?

:eyes:

go figure

I have are for the Iranian people themselves, who were under the illusion they might have had a voice in their election outcome, even if their priorities might have been a matter of choosing between a rock and a hard place. A perceived (by them) "lesser of evils". Perhaps it wasn't that they were so enthralled by Mousavi, as it was a desire to unseat an increasingly unpopular incumbent.

Don't underestimate among other things the major role of their difficult economy and the political blame being placed.

Background Brief: The State of Iran’s Economy
April 10, 2009
By Kristin Kooiman
National Democratic Institute


http://www.ndi.org/node/15383

Economy Ahmadinejad's big election test

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2009/06/02/economy_ahmadinejads_big_election_test/

Besides a few intellectually challenged members of the New Left (HE IS STANDS AGAINST "WESTERN IMPERIALISM", THEREFORE HE IS A GOOD GUY!) and Neoconservatives (He stands against "WESTERN VALUES" (Israel), THEREFORE WE MUST INVADE IRAN.)

That may someday result in the death of millions of them.

Was the guy who ran againt Milosevic and who spawned the rebellion against him after the election that Milosevic refused to honor a progressive? Hell no, he now represents the far right of Serbian politics and is an extreme nationalist asshole. The Serbians revolted not so much for him obviously, but rather to oust the repressive and murderous current regime. You have the same thing here.

no idea who's playing who, or even who "who" is.

Politics everywhere are complicated affairs. Iran is no exception.

What's interesting to me is how the current regime handled the election situation. We in the States had been hearing for a week or more that the vote count certification would take more than a day. Then all of a sudden the incumbent party announces that the incumbent has won by a landslide. Nothing suspicious there. If they had really won by a landslide why didn't they just wait out the certification period and announce the results in a less provocative manner?

I'm just asking these questions in hopes of getting answers--not as a statement of support for either candidate because NOW they both look like a bad option for Iran. Of course, I'm not a fundamental Islamist Iranian nationalist either.

On a controversial issue like this.

It may be completely accurate but Wikipedia can be edited and it's not outside the realm of possibility that Mousavi is being framed. This is something I want to look into but it's going to take more than a publicly edited Wiki entry for me to accept it.


Edited to add:

Looking at the Wikipedia article it states at the top that the neutrality is disputed. On the Talk page there is a section specifically referencing the massacre.

The text is below:

Responsible for massacre?

There are allegations that Mousavi was responsible for massacres on political prisoners committed in 1980-81, but in the text that this fact refers to it says nothing about this Mr. Moussavi. The only Mousavi that is mentioned there is Ayatolla Seyyed Ruhollah Mousavi Khomeini. Am I missing something? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.229.38.1 (talk) 08:24, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

This is one of several additions made by one "Amir Mousavi" which seem to be extremely biased and aimed at discrediting Mousavi. I would revert the changes if I could, but the article is semi-protected and I don't have the right. NobleHam (talk) 10:41, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

"Mousavi’s reputation for radicalism was undiminished. When he introduced his cabinet in 1985, he boasted that his interior minister, Ali Akbar Mohtashami, was a religious conservative who’d built his reputation while building Hezbollah, the Party of God, in Lebanon." These statement are strongly one- sided. The people should decide whether they think that mousavi is radical or not. Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia. There are no verifications at all, I have found many stupid comments in the text "the middle class don't like him". Please keep the article semi- protected and help to keep standarts. The whole article needs serious alternations --Englishazadipedia (talk) 15:34, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Here's a quote from Foreign Policy journal:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4921

"His liberal detractors emphasize that the Mousavi government oversaw the mass execution of political opponents in 1988, and say he has been largely silent on human rights violations since."

And Iranian students themselves seem well aware of the 1988 massacre and Mousavi's role:

"Iran : Students grill Moussavi about the 1988 massacre of political prisoners"
http://ncr-iran.org/content/view/6314/1/

And here's a Human Rights Watch report that talks about human rights, MKO, and the 1988 mass killings of political prisoners:
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2005/05/17/iran-exiled-armed-group-abuses-dissident-members

I'm actually disturbed by NYT puff pieces like this, glossing over the past:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/mir_hussein_moussavi/index.html

"Mr. Moussavi served as prime minister from 1980 to 1988. He is well remembered by many Iranians for managing the country during its eight-year war with Iraq, and for introducing food rationing."

In any case, I find it odd that anyone questioning events in Iran is supposed to be defending Ahmadinejad, while at the same time, whitewashing Mousavi's past isn't defending him. It's possible not to have a binary point of view. Rather, we can view human rights abuses are human rights abuses, full stop, without having a good guy vs bad guy.

It doesn't ever seem to be good VS bad but bad VS worse.

To even be allowed to run for president you have to be vetted by the religious authorities. A real reformer isn't going to get through that.

Thanks for the links, I see you are right about the 2 massacres. I was referencing the 80\81 not the 88. Still stand by not using Wikipedia as a source when the issue is at all controversial though.

by Ahmadinejad for his government. The general order to execute people seems to have come from Ayatollah Khomeini; the excuse was an MEK move into Iran from camps in Iraq with the aim of overthrowing the government

Ministers of Murder: Iran’s New Security Cabinet
http://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/mena/iran1205/index.htm