With the Rouhani Government limited in its ability to challenge the Supreme Leader, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani has taken up the task, meeting the families of political prisoners and publicly calling for the release of the detainees.

Last week Ayatollah Khamenei repeated his warning to President Rouhani not to press issues such as the freeing of the prisoners, many of them seized amid mass protests after the disputed 2009 Presidential election. The Supreme Leader said Ministers must distance themselves from “seditionists”, a term covering detainees such as opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, the 2009 Presidential candidates who have been under strict house arrest for 3 1/2 years.

On Saturday, Rouhani nominally bowed to the Supreme Leader’s command, “If anyone wears a cloak of eloquence but seeks subversion and sabotage, we won’t hesitate to remove that cloak before our people.”

However, Rafsanjani — who is the head of the Expediency Council as well as Rouhani’s mentor — has not been silenced. Having approached the Supreme Leader on several occasions to press for better treatment of prisoners and to make the case for their freedom, he met with the families of detainees on Monday.

See also Iran Feature: Rafsanjani Asks Supreme Leader to Free Detained Opposition Leaders Mousavi & Karroubi

After the meeting, Rafsanjani’s website posted his statement, “I Hope That All Political Prisoners Will Be Released“.

Rafsanjani told the families that “there was no benefit to society” from the detentions and that the struggle of the individual and society to better themselves should not be blocked by imprisonments.

After hearing of the state of the prisoners from their female relatives, the former President said he was “aware of the conditions” and urged the families to patiently pursue their cases.

The timing of Rafsanjani’s challenge has another political dimension. This week the Assembly of Experts was supposed to hold a special election to replace its chair, Ayatollah Mahdavi Kani, who has been in a coma since a June heart attack; however, Rafsanjani’s opponents feared that the former President — who led the Assembly from 2007 and 2011 — would triumph and indefinitely postponed the vote.

See Iran Analysis: Worried About Rafsanjani, Regime Cancels Key Election