INTERVIEW-Protests threaten Iran regime-former president
Thu Jun 18, 2009 12:34pm EDT
* Protesters seek democracy, ex-president Bani-Sadr says
* U.S. pledge not to interfere is welcome
By James Mackenzie
PARIS, June 18 (Reuters) - The wave of protests sparked by Iran's disputed presidential election now threatens the entire government, exiled former President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr said on Thursday.
"This movement shows that the people want democracy and the regime isn't democratic, so the movement won't stop," he told Reuters in an interview in his house outside Paris, where he has been exiled since 1981.
Bani-Sadr has been a sworn opponent of Tehran's since being driven from office and forced to flee Iran.
"It is going to continue in one way or another," he said. "The conscience of this people has condemned the regime. That's quite certain and anyone can see it."
Iranian authorities have been trying to quell the worst outbreak of unrest since the 1979 Islamic revolution, which has seen tens of thousands of protesters take to the streets following a June 12 election they say was rigged.
Bani-Sadr said the demonstrations had spread beyond a movement in support of Mirhossein Mousavi, the former prime minister who ran against sitting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the momentum now threatened to topple the whole clerical ruling structure in Iran.
Bani-Sadr accompanied revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini home from exile in 1979 and was elected president in 1980.
"It's at the level of the national conscience and in that sense, it resembles the movement at the time of the Shah," said Bani-Sadr, a veteran of the protest movement of the 1970s which brought down the Shah of Iran.
U.S. RESPONSE
In contrast to some critics of U.S. President Barack Obama who have urged strong condemnation of Tehran, Bani-Sadr welcomed Washington's muted response and the declaration that the United States would not interfere.
"It was a good reaction. It doesn't allow the regime to use outside intervention as a justification for repression," he said, adding that former President George W. Bush's hostile rhetoric had ensured "immobility" in Iran.
"It paralysed Iranians. During the entire period of Mr Bush, there was no movement in Iran. After him, there is another president, a new policy and there is movement in Iran."
He said the reaction of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who this week called the election a "fraud", was "less good".
"It would have been much better if he had remained silent because a people needs to be able to say 'I decide my own fate, it doesn't come from outside.' Iranians are very sensitive about this point," he said. (Editing by Charles Dick)