The children of Mehdi Karroubi, MirHosein Mousavi and Zahra Rahnavard, the three Iranian opposition leaders who have been under house arrest for close to two years, today demanded that the Islamic Republic authorities end the “violation” of their parents’ rights and release them.
In a statement published on the Kaleme website on Monday January 7, they call on Islamic Republic authorities to “show the courage to take responsibility for the illegal arrest of” the opposition leaders.
Karroubi, Mousavi and Rahnavard have been under house arrest since February 2011 for rallying Iranians to protest in solidarity with the Arab uprisings in the region. There has been no official indictment of the opposition leaders; they have simply been put under house arrest without being charged or tried.
The children of the opposition leaders write that “the country’s top authorities should deal immediately with our parents’ file and, after close to two years of illegal arrest, release them immediately without making unfounded excuses.”
They go on to add that “such a violation of the primary human rights and the current laws and regulations of the country” in connection to Karroubi, Mousavi and Rahnavard “cannot be happening without authorization from the country’s top officials.”
“After close to two years of house arrest, no official authority has taken responsibility for the judicial state of our loved ones, who are of concern to a large portion of the Iranian people.”
The statement also expresses concern regarding the health of the opposition leaders under house arrest and demands an end to their incarceration and an opportunity for them to file charges against the “injustice that they have suffered.”
The opposition leaders have been completely cut off from the public for close to two years, and even their children are only given rare opportunities to visit them.
The children of the opposition leaders demand the right for their parents to speak about their house arrest in the media “free of any security and military threats.”
Many reformist political figures have called for the release of the opposition leaders in recent months and have advised the Iranian establishment that the release of all political prisoners would help the country out of its critical situation.
