Karroubi and Mousavi demand authorisation for rallies in support of Arab uprisings

The Iranian regime’s commitment to freedom and democracy is put to the test.

According to Saham News the official website of the reformist National Trust Party, 2009 presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi have put the Iranian authorities’ claims of solidarity and support for the revolts of the Arab World to the test.

In a joint letter, the leaders of Iran’s opposition Green Movement, Mahdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi have officially asked Ahmadinejad’s Interior Ministry to grant authorisation for a march in support of the people’s uprising against dictatorship in Egypt and Tunisia. According to the their request for permit, the march is to be held between Tehran’s Imam Hossein Square and Freedom Square.

The letter to Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, Ahmadinejad’s current Interior Minister, is as follows:

“Hereby, we would to announce that in order to express solidarity with popular movements in the region, especially the freedom-seeking uprisings of the people of Tunisia and Egypt against tyrannical regimes in the country, we would like to request the issuance of a permit for calling on [the people] to joina public demonstration, in accordance wth article 27 of constitution, to back the people’s uprising in these two Muslim countries at 3pm on Monday 14 February from Imam Hossein to Azadi Square.”

Despite their intolerance for any opposition protest since the rigged 2009 presidential election, Iranian authorities have in recent weeks allowed for certain pockets of protests to be held against the tyrants of Egypt and Tunisia. At the height of the protests in Egypt, small demonstrations were organised by the Basij militias in front of the Egyptian interests section in northern Tehran, expressing solidarity with the Arab populations.

What remains to be seen is whether the all-of-a-sudden “pro-democracy” leadership in Iran will allow for similar marches to be held by the Iranian Green Movement in support of the Egyptian and Tunisian Revolutions.

On Friday, Egypt’s main opposition party, the Muslim Brotherhood has rejected calls by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei for an Islamic Revolution similar to the Iranian revolution of 1979 to be established in Egypt.

“The MB regards the revolution as the Egyptian People’s Revolution not an Islamic Revolution” said a statement published on the Muslim Brotherhood’s official website just hours after Khamenei’s remarks on Friday, while “asserting that the Egyptian People’s Revolution includes Muslims, Christians, from all sects and political.”