Iranian MP demands Rouhani end house arrests

Iranian parliament member Ali Motahhari wrote an open letter to President Hassan Rouhani warning him that if he did not end the house arrests of the 2009 presidential candidates, he would be summoned to parliament. 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.

Motahhari’s letter read, “It’s been three years and eight months that the house arrest of [Mehdi] Karroubi and [Mir Hossein] Mousavi, which is against the constitution and without a court ruling to give them the chance to defend themselves, has continued.

“It’s possible that the initial ruling for house arrest for these two from the Supreme National Security Council was forced by necessity, for a temporary period — maybe one month, or until society returns to normal — and was acceptable. But its continuation without a judiciary ruling certainly has no legal, religious or moral basis.”

Motahhari called putting critics under indefinite house arrest instead of addressing their cases “a wrong tradition within the Islamic Republic.” Grand Ayatollahs Hossein Ali Montazeri and Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari, two individuals who criticized some Iranian policies, were also put under house arrest.