Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 20
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
House arrest of the opposition leaders Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi is the Islamic Republic's redline and cannot be violated by any entity, Mansour Haghighatpour, member of the Iranian parliament's Foreign Policy and National Security Commission said.
The decision of taking the opposition leaders under house arrest was made by the Supreme Security Council and was approved by Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Haghighatpour said, the country's Mehr news agency reported Dec. 20.
The Iranian MP said that the decision is completely legal and should be respected by all persons and entities in the Islamic Republic.
Only the Supreme Security Council can repeal its former decision on the issue, Haghighatpour added.
The Iranian opposition leaders have been under house arrest since 2011 due to protests against thedisputed presidential election of 2009.
After Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president of Iran for the second term in 2009, the opposition leaders protested the decision, which later resulted in massive protests across Iran, in particular in Tehran. Many people were arrested.
Early in November Ali Younesi, who serves as President Hassan Rouhani's special aide for the affairs of ethnic groups and religious minorities said that releasing the house arrested leaders is beyond Rouhani's authority.
"The government only can prepare grounds for lifting house arrest but has no authority on the issue," Younesi added.
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.
In mid-March the UN 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.
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