In an open letter addressed to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, 193 faculty members of Iranian medical universities have demanded his serious efforts to end the house arrests of Iranian opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi, Zahra Rahnavard, and Mehdi Karroubi.
Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, two 2009 presidential candidates, and Zahra Rahnavard, Mousavi’s wife, have been under house arrest for more than one thousand days, since February 2011, after they applied for a permit to host a rally in support of the Arab Spring. In 2009, millions of Iranians took to the streets for peaceful protests against election fraud after incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was announced as the winner, but met with a bloody crackdown from the Iranian authorities, leading to deaths, injuries, arrests, and imprisonment.
The doctors state in their letter that the three individuals have not had access to a free and fair trial and have not been able to defend themselves. The letter further states that the recent turnout of Iranians in polling stations to vote for Hassan Rouhani was “in hopes of solving the problems … believing in your hopeful slogans, the most prominent one of which was the promise to pursue the release of the political prisoners….” During his election campaign, Rouhani said, about pursuing the issue of Iran’s political prisoners, “Why political prisoners? We must do something for all these prisoners to be released.”
There have been conflicting statements by Iranian officials about the fate of Mousavi, Karroubi, and Rahnavard. In October, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the Justice Minister in Rouhani’s cabinet, told reporters that the National Security Council was reviewing the house arrest case. But shortly thereafter, Iran’s Prosecutor General and Spokesperson for the Judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi, said that no new developments had occurred in the case. On November 11, Ejehi told reporters that “those who were put under house arrest after the 2009 election were criminals and had oppressed the people,” adding that “decisions have been made about these individuals and no changes have been made in their punishment.”
On November 12, Human Rights Watch and the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran called on Iranian authorities to release Mousavi, Karroubi, and Rahnavard. “Rouhani promised to seek the release of these opposition figures, and millions of Iranians trusted he would seek their release and voted for him,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. “His supporters are still waiting for him to end these extrajudicial detentions, and clarify which institutions of the state are controlling these people’s fate.”
International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran