PHOTO: Mehdi Karroubi with supporters during a mass demonstration in 2009
Iran’s opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi, detained for more than five years, has written an open letter to President Rouhani asking to be put on trial.
Karroubi, a candidate in the disputed 2009 Presidential election “won” by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, asked for the trial to “show who has turned his back on [the Islamic] Revolution”. He said the court hearing would lead to new information about fraud in the vote, whose outcome was protested by millions of Iranians.
Karroubi requested of Rouhani, “Ask the ‘ruling dictatorship” to give me my day in court so that I can tell who is noble and who is not.”
The reformist politician, who is 78, was at the forefront of the Green Movement’s call for rights and reforms after the election. He dared to address the Supreme Leader and other high-ranking officials, such as former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, to challenge the mass detentions of activists, journalists, lawyers, and students and to call for fulfillment of the Iranian Constitution.
In February 2011, authorities — fearing the revival of mass protests — imposed strict house arrests on Karroubi, his wife Fatemeh, fellow 2009 candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, and Mousavi’s wife, academic and artist Zahra Rahnavard.
Fatemeh Karroubi was released in the summer but the other three were kept in confinement, limited in their communications with even family visits restricted.
In an interview in February 2015, Fatemeh Karroubi spoke of her husband’s conditions and put his case for a legal hearing:
For Karroubi, the path is the same, and he is standing as firm as before. He has a lot to say, and wants nothing for himself. He has told the operatives several times to move him to Evin Prison so the government is forced to go through the legal process and put him on trial.
It has been five years that the government, using State media as its own mouthpiece, has refused to listen, has made accusations and spread lies and has prevented us from responding and defending ourselves. However, as you can see, all these smear campaigns have not changed people’s views….
Karroubi has repeatedly said that he is ready to be prosecuted based on Directive 168 of the constitution, which provides for a public and open trial.
