The Assembly of Combatant Clergy [Majma Rohaniyoon Mobarez], an organization headed by former president and green movement leader Mohammad Khatami, issued a statement last night reiterating the demands made by Hashemi Rafsanjani in his landmark Friday prayer speech last summer and Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s statement no. 17 issued last December and calling for the green movement’s supporters to attend next Thursday’s rally while “Refraining from any kind of violence, respecting civil behavior and displaying tolerance and acceptance even in face of violence.”

The statement also calls on the Green Movement supporters to rely on “fundamental slogans born out of the revolution and popular consciousness, such as Independence, Freedom, and Islamic Republic” and refrain from chanting deviant slogans on February 11 (22 of the Persian month of Bahman), commemorated as the day the Islamic republic was founded when the Pahlavi regime collapsed in 1979.

The statement also lists the following as the Assembly’s demands from “all leaders”: observance of the right to hold peaceful rallies based on Article 27 of the Iranian Constitution, release of all political prisoners, holding of free and fair elections and reforming the electoral process, acknowledging the right to self-determination through allowing peaceful gatherings and recognizing the right to free speech, prosecution and punishment of perpetrators of rape against post-election political prisoners, prosecution and punishment of perpetrators of crimes at Kahrizak detention center and Tehran University dormitories, refraining from insulting critical revolutionary figures, independence of the state radio and television broadcasting organization and refraining from lying to the public.  

With the Assembly’s statement, all leaders of the Green Movement and political figures aligned with the movement have issued official calls for the people to participate in the February 11 anniversary rally.  

According to the latest reports from Tehran, the hardline Kayhan daily referred to the green movement leaders’ invitation for public participation in the rally as “treacherous” and “hypocritical,” writing, “On the eve of the anniversary of the revolution, Mousavi, Khatami and the Assembly of Combatant Clergy have, in separate statements and remarks, continued on their treacherous and hypocritical path for February 11.”  

Kayhan explained this “treacherous” move as follows: “The common point in all the statements, as was previously predicted in detail by Kayhan, was an invitation to what they have called ‘protest,’ but what in reality is a fake name for ‘disturbance.’  First, peaceful and calm gathering, in light of the actual behavior of this bunch in recent months, is a meaningless joke; secondly, one must ask, protesting what?”

Kayhan, which is affiliated with ayatollah Khamenei, labeled February 11 as “the last chance for leaders of the conspiracy,” writing, “the leaders of the conspiracy have begun their special actions by releasing statements and holding interviews to use their ‘last change’ for street maneuvers.”