Ali Motahari Iranian MP who has on several occasions called for an end to the house arrest of the leaders of the so-called Green Movement, has commended the latest statements of the head of the judiciary Ayatollah Larijanai regarding the events of 2009.
In a statement on his website Motahari said the latest statements of Sadegh Larijania could be a good beginning for resolving the house arrest debate.
While a group of top officials in the Islamic Republic want an end to the house arrests, hardliners insist that the leaders are guilty of sedition and should remain under house arrest.
Larijani reportedly said on Sunday that the events of 2009 were a “semi coup d’etah” adding: “I do not want to say that the protests began with the objective of sedition and toppling the government, but it became a teeming ground for anti-Revolutionaries to move against the rule of the clergy.”
He went on to say perhaps they were only trying to merely “stage protests but a corrupt movement took over the protests and drew the country into disorder.”
Motahari interpreted Larijani’s statements as a “recognition of the constitutional right of the people to stage civil protests” which he says is the first step to open the debate on the 2009 protests and move onto to the second step of “evaluating the actions of those two individuals (Mousavi and Karroubi)”.
MirHosein Mousavi and his wife Zahra Rahnavard have been under house arrest since 2011 for challenging the results of the 2009 elections. Mehdi Karroubi the other presidential candidate has also been under house arrest since then. Hardliners have been referring to Mousavi and Karroubi as leaders of sedition while the two opposition leaders have denied the allegations saying their protests were within the framework of the constitution and within their rights.
Motahari has been calling for an open trial of the two in order to satisfy the public that justice is being served.
