IRGC-Affiliated Newspaper Accuses Khatami of Seeking to Overthrow Iranian Regime

Former reformist President Mohammad Khatami and his close ally, Mir Hossein Mousavi on July 31, 2009 in Tehran. (Getty Images)
Former reformist President Mohammad Khatami and his close ally, Mir Hossein Mousavi on July 31, 2009 in Tehran. (Getty Images)
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IRGC-Affiliated Newspaper Accuses Khatami of Seeking to Overthrow Iranian Regime

Former reformist President Mohammad Khatami and his close ally, Mir Hossein Mousavi on July 31, 2009 in Tehran. (Getty Images)
Former reformist President Mohammad Khatami and his close ally, Mir Hossein Mousavi on July 31, 2009 in Tehran. (Getty Images)

Javan, a newspaper affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, accused former reformist President Mohammad Khatami and his ally, Mir Hossein Moussavi, of seeking to topple the Iranian regime, following two separate statements, in which they called for radical reforms in the country.

The two statements, which were issued days before the commemoration of the 1979 revolution, pointed to the numerous crises in Iran, and the general dissatisfaction and frustration with the ruling body.

However, they expressed a conflicting position on the “effectiveness” of the constitution of the Islamic Republic in Iran.

Khatami stated that reform was possible with a return to the “spirit of the constitution” in the republic.

“People have the right to despair of the regime,” he said, rejecting however calls to overthrow the ruling authority.

Khatami’s positions conflicted with those of his reformist ally, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has been placed under house arrest since February 2011, after he rejected the results of the 2009 presidential elections and led the Green Revolution protests along with another reformist candidate, Mehdi Karoubi.

Mousavi called for drafting a new constitution and submitting it to a popular referendum, followed by a “free and fair” vote to change the structure of political power in Iran.

He criticized the “obstinacy” of the authorities and their insistence on repressive methods in the recent protests, instead of dialogue and persuasion. Pointing to Iran’s increasing problems, he said that the biggest crisis was the contradictory structure of the country that was no longer viable.

Commenting on the statements of Mousavi and Khatami, Javan, which is affiliated with the IRGC Political Bureau, wrote that the two Iranian politicians implied the overthrow of the regime and the legal institutions in the Islamic Republic.

The newspaper saw that Mousavi’s statement officially called for “toppling the regime,” while Khatami used another rhetoric with the same aim to attack the structure of the Iranian ruling authority.



Floods in Eastern DR Congo Kill More Than 100

People in Kinshasa’s Pompage district after the Congo River overflowed. (AFP/Getty Images file)
People in Kinshasa’s Pompage district after the Congo River overflowed. (AFP/Getty Images file)
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Floods in Eastern DR Congo Kill More Than 100

People in Kinshasa’s Pompage district after the Congo River overflowed. (AFP/Getty Images file)
People in Kinshasa’s Pompage district after the Congo River overflowed. (AFP/Getty Images file)

Raging floods rushing through a village during the night killed more than 100 people, many of them children as they slept, in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, local officials told AFP on Saturday.

The floods were sparked by torrential rains and ripped through the Kasaba village in the Sud Kivu province during the night of Thursday-Friday, Bernard Akili, a regional official, told AFP.

Torrential rains caused the Kasaba river to burst its banks overnight, with the rushing waters "carrying everything in their path, large stones, large trees and mud, before razing the houses on the edge of the lake," he said.

"The victims who died are mainly children and elderly," he said, adding that 28 people were injured and some 150 homes were destroyed.

Sammy Kalonji, the regional administrator, said the torrent killed at least 104 people and caused "enormous material damage."

Another local resident told AFP that some 119 bodies had been found by Saturday.

The village, which sits on the Tanganyika lake and is only accessible by the lake, does not have internet service, a local humanitarian worker told AFP.

Such natural disasters are frequent in the DRC, particularly on the shores of the great lakes in the east of the country, with the surrounding hills weakened by deforestation.

In 2023, floods killed 400 people in several communities located on the shores of Lake Kivu, in South Kivu province.