Baku, Azerbaijan, March 15
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani instructed intelligence and interior ministers to inspect a recent attack on a Tehran MP, Ali Motahari, by unidentified individuals.
In a letter to the ministers, Rouhani commissioned them to identify the "outlaws" who are involved in the attack, as well as the "secret hands" behind the assault.
Rouhani also asked for prosecution of the provincial intelligence officials, who he claimed are responsible in the assault, Iran's ISNA news agency reported March 15.
On March 9, unknown persons on motorcycles attacked Motahari's car in Iran's southern city of Shiraz.
The incident occurred in Shiraz city airport, where Motahari arrived to hold a speech. Upon arrival, the mentioned people started chanting insulting slogans to the MP.
They reportedly attacked the MP's car with stones and sticks, crushing the car's windows. Motahari's driver managed to drive the car to the nearby police station, but the unknowns followed the car, and surrounded the police office for three hours.
Motahari allegedly got his eye injured in the assault, and had to cancel his upcoming speech, and later returned to Tehran.
Rouhani called the attack a new plan by "perverse extremists" against security and freedom, which would not be tolerated by his administration.
Motahari is currently under pressure from the country's hardliner MPs and politicians due to his viewpoints on the ongoing house arrest of the opposition leaders Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi, who have been held under arrest since 2011, due to 2009 post-presidential election protests.
Early in January 2015, several hardliner lawmakers interrupted Motahari's speech in the parliament, while he was talking against the opposition leaders' house arrest.
Follow the author on Twitter: @UmidNiayesh