Iran's Ex-President under attack for peaceful reform calls

A prominent Iranian reformist figure says the Iranian regime should be worried as even ex-President Mohammad Khatami says that reformism in Iran has reached a deadlock.

The comment by Mohammad Javad Haqshenas comes as several conservative media outlets have attacked Khatami for his statement about the end of hope in reformism and his warning that disillusionment about reforms and the advocacy of regime change might lead to chaos, civil war and bloodshed.

In his statement on Sunday, Khatami had called on the government to meet the people's demands and prevent a revolutionary change.

Haqshenas said in an interview with Rouydad24 that Khatami's statement, which was issued on the 44thanniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution sends a message that the Islamic Republic cannot be reformed. He added that the regime should take Khatami's statement as a warning and begin to reform itself from within.

On social media many argued that the fact that Khatami, former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi and former deputy Interior Minister Mostafa Tajzadeh have issued more or less similar statements warning that not reforming the system could lead to havoc was not a sheer coincidence. 

They suggested that the move was coordinated from within the system to scare the people of the consequences of the Islamic Republic's collapse.

Haqshenas on the other hand argued that reformists were expelled from the system as conservatives took over the executive, judiciary and legislative bodies. By doing so, the hard core of the regime made sure that it got rid of the challenges posed by reformists for good.