The Iranian judiciary has announced that it may file charges against MP Ali Motahari, a staunch critic of the Ahmadinejad administration.
The Tehran Prosecutor announced that Motahari’s statements regarding cabarets, clubs and the sexual gratification of young people may be subject to criminal investigation and cannot be justified as “sociological and psychological commentary.”
In May, Motahari accused the administration of having a lax stance regarding Islamic attire in public, saying: “Mr. Mashai and Mr. Ahmadinejad have cleverly brought the situation of Islamic dress code in public to the current state. They have legalized sexual stimulation and created psychological complexes for our youth. They should now be thinking about satisfying young people with cabarets and night clubs.”
Motahari has defended his statements as “sociological and psychological commentary,” stressing that the people’s representatives in Parliament should not be threatened by the prosecutor.
Motahari has also been quoted as saying that the prosecutor’s threat of action against him must be a result of “idleness or pressure from the administration.”
Motahari went on to criticize the prosecutor’s statement against him, saying the judiciary had better concentrate on finalizing the case against former Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi, who is charged with perpetuating the torture and murder of detainees in the infamous Kahrizak jail.
The case against Mortazavi, the notorious former prosecutor of Tehran, has been moving slowly through the court system, even though a parliamentary probe has found him culpable in the unjustified transfer of detainees to Kahrizak jail in 2009, where they were severely tortured and at least three of them died under torture.
