Iran’s parliamentary session descended into chaos during the Jan. 11 speech of Ali Motahari, the outspoken member of the Iranian parliament. Despite his political identification as a conservative, Motahari reiterated his view that the ongoing house arrest of the Reformist leaders of the Green Movement, who have been confined since February 2011, “is in violation with many principles of the constitution.” In response, several lawmakers reportedly shouted “death to seditionists,” and approached the podium in an attempt to physically remove Motahari.

The issue that Motahari raised is one that few political figures — both Reformist and conservative — have an appetite to confront, given the consequences of doing so. In August 2014, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned President Hassan Rouhani and other officials that “issues pertaining to the sedition [mass protests after the disputed 2009 presidential elections and the emergence of the Reformist Green Movement] and seditionists are a red line that officials should adhere to.”

Nevertheless, the Jan. 11 event was not an isolated incident. From every corner of the conservatives’ camp — political and military figures, newspapers and websites — attacks on the Green Movement and its supporters has suddenly intensified. This is despite the movement's dormancy since the June 2009 mass street protests, and some sporadic moves afterward, which eventually capitulated in 2011. The question must be asked then, what can explain the increasingly powerful attacks on a movement that, according to conservatives themselves, “is dead”?

The explanation is the conservative belief that moderates and Reformists, who shaped the backbone of the Green Movement, are poised to take over the next Majles (parliament) and the Assembly of Experts, which, according to the constitution, is tasked with electing the supreme leader if the incumbent passes away. The elections of the Majles and the Assembly of Experts will take place in March 2016.