The Iranian opposition says the house arrest of opposition leaders MirHosein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi and their wives must not become accepted as an ordinary practice in Iran.
The reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front issued a statement yesterday calling on all social organizations, political parities and influential religious, political and academic figures to urgently address the illegal arrest and incarceration of political prisoners. It said failing to do so could lead to such imprisonments becoming commonplace and unchallenged.
The statement came in response to Monday’s arrest of Alireza Rejai, a prominent journalist and national religious activist, who was detained on “security charges.”
The Islamic Iran Participation Front was banned by the authorities following the controversial re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009, which reformists claimed was rigged. Numerous senior members of the IIPF have been arrested and sentenced to harsh prison terms, while some have been released on exorbitant bails.
Since February, Mousavi, Karroubi and their wives have been out under strict house arrest, denied any outside communication.
The statement condemns Rejai’s arrest, adding: “The persistence of such arrests reveals that the fraudulent ruling autocrats are helpless in the face of the dynamic Green Movement of Iranians for democracy and change; they are on their last breaths, soon to be held accountable for oppressing the most prominent members of our nation.”
