Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.11
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
Releasing the house arrested Iranian opposition leaders is beyond President Hassan Rouhani's authority, the president's special aide for the affairs of ethnic groups and religious minorities, Ali Younesi said.
"The government only can prepare grounds for lifting house arrest but has no authority on the issue," Younesi Said, Iran's Ensaf News portal reported Nov. 11.
If the political atmosphere in Iran is normalized, then Rouhani will be able to keep his word on releasing opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, he added.
Certain people are against normalizing the political atmosphere in the Islamic Republic, Younesi said.
The Iranian opposition leaders have been under house arrest since 2011 due to protests against the 2009 disputed presidential election.
In 2009, after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president of Iran for the second term, the opposition leaders protested the decision, which later resulted in massive protests across Iran, in particular in Tehran. Many people were arrested.
In mid-March the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon accused Rouhani of not fulfilling campaign promises to allow greater freedom of expression and called for the release of political prisoners in Iran including Karroubi and Mousavi.
Earlier in October Iranian MP Ali Motahari wrote an open letter to Rouhani warning him that if he did not end the house arrests of the opposition leaders, he would be summoned to parliament. The government spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht responded that the administration was not "indifferent" on the matter but is not going to make all of its efforts in this regard public.
Iranian hardliners argue that the opposition leaders should remain under house arrest until they "repent."
Iran's Prosecutor General Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei accused the opposition leaders of "destruction of public property", claiming that they are also responsible for the people killed.
Releasing detained opposition leaders beyond Rouhani’s authority
Releasing the house arrested Iranian opposition leaders is beyond President Hassan Rouhani’s authority, the president's special aide for the affairs of ethnic groups and religious minorities, Ali Younesi said.
