Ali Shakourirad, a senior Iranian reformist figure and member of Islamic Iran Participation Front, who was arrested in December for a second time in the past year, was released today after 48 days in prison.
Shakourirad, who has been very vocal in his blog and the media about the alleged vote rigging in the 2009 presidential elections, was charged with “spreading propaganda against the regime and publishing falsehoods.”
Tehran Prosecutor’s Office website announced in December that Shakourirad has been arrested for attributing falsehood to the head of the judiciary, Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani.
In a public debate, Shakourirad had said: “Your own media reported that Ali Larijani (Speaker of parliament) congratulated Mr. Mousavi on the phone for his victory and he (Larijani) did not deny the report. There are similar reports about Mr. Saedgh Larijani too but for some reason they have not been publicized yet, but will be when the time comes.”
Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, head of Iran’s judiciary denied Shakourirad’s statement following the debate which led to the most recent arrest of the reformist figure.
In the same debate, he says: “Immediately after the elections, they turned on protesters destroying all their documents, even the documents and evidence of the Preservation of Votes Committee were lost as well. Part of the Coup that was carried out was to exactly destroy these documents.”
The opposition claims that the 2009 presidential election was rigged and the true winner was in fact MirHosein Mousavi, one of the reformist candidates. They maintain that the victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of interference of security and military forces in the election process which they describe as a coup.
The reformist party, Islamic Iran Participation Front, which backed MirHosein Mousavi in the 2009 election, has been heavily attacked in the process of state crackdown on election protesters and many of its members have been arrested in the past year.
Norooz website reports that 16 members of IIPF including several of its executive members are currently in prison.
Shakourirad was also arrested in Sepember for "security" charges and released a month later with the intervention of a top clerical figure.
