Saturday, September 19, 2009

Children of Hashemi Rafsanjani ask the Judiciary to audit their wealth to put an end to Ahmadinejad's insinuations about their corruption.


(Their letter needs major persian editing! It's full of run ons and etc; and a lot of times it is had to make sense of it for English speakers; but I translate it in full, unless specified, and color code the important parts of it.)


Honorabple head of the judiciary of the Islamic republic of Iran, ... [Greetings]
Respectfully, the start of your appointment at the helm of Iran's justice system and [your] emphasis on execution of the law has doubled our hope in progressing "judiciary system according to Islamic justice"; "safe guarding people's rights", and establishing "a just legal security for all" as stated in the Constitution--the blood price of thousands of martyrs of this revolution--and has encouraged us to bring our complaints to your attention via this letter, may our individual and social rights be reclaimed according to the judiciary duty stated in the 156th principle of the National Charter.

As you are aware, character assassination and defamation of the leaders of the revolution have been one of the weapons of Islamic Revolution's enemies in the past 30 years. Aiming to destroy the genuine models of the main goals of the revolution [they have] cast doubt on justness, diligence and dedicated service of executives who expect nothing in return, in order to discredit this unique movement and bring about the conditions of return to an era when powers can continue their exploitations without worrying about people's demand for justice.

Unfortunately, next to a few naive individuals, groups and parties with a certain internal political agenda have joined the enemy's chorus; and on a platform of rumors and insinuations that endanger the legal and moral bases of the revolution and the country, by taking advantage of public sentiments, have gained their intended power and positions.

Our honorable father, the selfless serving child of this movement and this people, Hashemi Rafsanjani, is someone who, because of his unique and unforgettable role in all levels of tis revolution in over half a century, has had the largest share of these immoral, illegal and unethical attacks. The key to enemy's failure and his survival, despite their animosity has to be sought in his eternal service during struggle [against Pahlavi], sacred defense [against Saddam] and reconstruction [post-war 2-term presidency]; and in Imam [Khomeini]'s words, who linked the life of this movement to Hashemi's life--a statement that was not made about anyone else with such assertion and such expression.

The purpose of this letter, however, is not to defend this pillar of revolution and the country, as God is his supporter [للبیت رب بحمیه?]. Enemy's last device, after they failed to tarnish the image of this man of service, and after they became aware of the ineffectiveness of their previous tactics, has been to spread rumors and lies about the children of Hashemi Rafsanjani since a while ago but increasingly in recent years.

We "Hashemi's", like the rest of the people of this country, can claim our rights. Although we declare that father's position has never provided us any facilities; and that no one deserves any advantage over another unless in purity of hard work for Islam, Revolution, country and the nation; but, since these rumors and accusations are used as a leverage to eliminate Hashemi from the scene; and since knowingly or unknowingly this water turn's enemy's mills, we insist on claiming our rights [from the judiciary system] and if [you can] not [help], we leave the matter to God's just and fierce might on the judgement day.

Ayatoolah Amoli Larijani,
It is clear that continuation of previous trend that a few individuals with a sense of immunity to legal challenge spread such rumors is neither in correpondance with shari'a, law and morals; nor is it in the interest of the country and our society; and it causes serious damage to the revolution and our country, because: [below I have shortened some paragraphs of their reasoning]

  • Defamations violate individual rights that are guaranteed under 2nd article of the Constitution; and deny individuals the right to defense as specified in the 34th article of the Constitution
  • Ignore the 37th article of the constitution according to which innocence is assumed unless guilt is proven [then remind the supreme judge of illegal behavior of certain ahmadinejadist factions]
  • With respect to opposition to order, morales, public rights and credibility of managerial and legal executives: breaking ethics by spreading rumors, lies, accusations, insult and public deception and ..., breaking the public trust by what they claim is whistle blowing, and mixing this with falsifications of the world media, which has no end, create hopelessness and indifference in people and make the country vulnerable to plots and increasing pressures from outsde, while giving the foreigners opportunity to claim proof of their 30-years old allegations; breaking the managerial structure of the country because then any one at any position will utilize any tool, be it lies or accusations, to climb the power ladder; implying that the country's high executives have been unable to rein in the rich and the corrupt, thus suggesting illegitimacy and ineffectiveness of the system; alluding to incapability of the justice system in addressing the crimes of such groups and thus implying absence of legal safetty; ignoring public rights and breaking the rules of Islamic shari'a; will be some of the outcomes of such trend
  • More importantly, damaging the ideological bases of the revolution and the system, by alluding to the ineffectiveness of the Islamic government; which based on Prophet and Saint's teachings, and under the responsibilities of the absolute "Vali-e Faghih", aims to establish an Islamic Utopia according to Islamic ideology, principles and rules; and hold the government accountable to "generate suitable environment for growth of moral deeds" [I really have difficulty editing their Persian!]

Ayatollah Amoli Larijani,

So far, several organizations such as the Ministry of Intelligence, The Organization of General Audit, and in one instance a special commission formed by consensus from high officials of the country, have examined these matters, but their results are unfortunately not announced to the public.

Despite having access to all documentations in the executive offices of the country in the past four years, the respectable[!] government has not provided any evidence in proof of any of their rumors.

In our view, this is why despite repeated and persistent requests from the victims of such defamations, expectations from the public and obligations from the legal system to refer these accusations to courts, these accusations have been just used to manipulate the public opinion.

Perhaps this is why recently, by publicizing the confessions of those accused in recent events--which even if were legal were pertinent only to those individuals--they are trying to fabricate evidence against one of the signatories of this letter.

On the other hand, unfortnately, the judiciary system has failed to address several complaints about violation of guaranteed individual rights under articles 34, 36, 61 and 156 of the Constitution.

We, Fatemeh, Mohsen, Fa'ezeh, Mehdi and Yasser Hashemi, with trust in God, first to claim our personal rights; next to have acted within principles of sharia to revived the public rights, guard the principle of law and moral values; and at last to request the judiciary officials to obey Ayatollah Khamenei's order, who on the Friday prayer of 29 Khordad 1388, exonerated the character of Mr Hashemi [their father] and emphasized that "people have to pay attention to the facts", and forbid allegations "before establishing proof in the judiciary system" which in his view "misguides the society and the youth's minds", and who ordered prosecution of the actors of such defamations.

We ask your honor, who are well educated in science and religion, who avoid to play in the hands of power at the expense of law and morales, who claim independence of the judiciary, who will "rot in hell if you choose power and earth over the law" [sorry this is what they mean in 4 lines of unpleasantries], to appoint a competent and independent referee with full authority, and immune to political games, to undertake investigation of these accusations and rumors and announce the results to the brave and intelligent people of Islamic Iran and to the respectable officials of the country; and to put an end to this illegal trend by applying justice. Although in execution of his legal duties, the head of the judiciary in 1376 clearly testified that the belongings of the President [Hashemi's presidency ended in 1376] and his family had diminished; and testified to the falsity of accusations, but the hands of conspiracy are still at work to in addition to ignoring that ruling, blame us for all of the corruptions of the past years that we have had no access to any power or public funds. They are repeating these accusations from public tribunes and media to smokescreen the investigation of the potential illegal activities of the [current] rulers. Worse, is that they unjustly claim that the "powerhouses" prevent them from investigation of these accusations!

We trust that your honor, who in the first hours of your appointment stated no tolerance for deviation from the law, will order your honest and just judges to fully examine all allegations and rumors, and to make announcing the results to us a priority.

At the end, we emphasize that with this request, we have made it clear that if today, those who have access to legal power do not seek justice for us, we will seek justice in God's just presence! [duuh!]

gratitude and etc ...



3 comments:

Pedestrian said...

This was EXCELLENT. Thanks so much Naj.

I wonder what R. is doing and thinking behind the scenes. It kind of breaks my heart to see him fall from the peaks he once rode. Even though I didn't like what he was doing there. (or, at least, what I thought he was doing there)

Naj said...

Ped, you know when I forgave Hashemi?
When i saw that BBC documentary, part 2 I thing, when he was explaining how poor we were when fighting to defend ourselves against Iraq; how he who was the commander in chief was trying to get weapons (Iran-gate) for Iran, how he was trying to make Khomeini realize that we HAD to end the war; and how he offered his own head to Khomeini to save him face when they announced the end of the war.

I also forgave him another time yesterday; when he appeared in the Quds rally and graciously said (I have been Imam of Ghods day for 30 years; it doesn't matter if someone else conducts it now.)

This shows his CLEVERNESS! He is not to be sidelined and he is INTELLIGENT enough to divert all attempts to marginalize him! His presence in the quds rally yesterday and in the Fitr prayer today testify to his political savvy! We do not have such flexible men in our history--this is why our history breaks so often!

Now this declaration of his children is a GREAT knock to the underbelly of Ahmadinejadists.

Truth is, Hashemi is coming from the richest province of Iran. He is, whether we like it or not, the "commander of construction". He did bring a lot of heavy industries and did follow up many of the blue prints of development--and all in the aftermath of a bloody war.

I don't know ... I know politics is a filthy game ... but I give my respect to men who do the RIGHT thing when things go wrong! And Hashemi's conduct after the election has been that expected of the supreme leader!

Pedestrian said...

We should have watched Iran & the West together. I'm sure it would have gotten interesting! ;-)I had very similar thoughts. I remember thinking after the part about Rafsanjani: "WHOA! this guy is a lot deeper than I thought! Who knew he sacrificed so much?"
I didn't!

It also made me look at Khatami differently too. He always seemed like a soft marshmallow to me, but I saw that on the inside, he was at least TRYING. He's no wise politician like Rafsanjani, but he's not as spineless as I used to think. He was trying to strike compromises.

Yes! R. is flexible, he's a REAL statesmen, in a country where we've had very few of them. And whatever he did or didn't do, he's genuinely concerned for a "nezam" he helped establish. He doesn't want to see it disintegrate for his personal benefit ... UNLIKE some other people.