Mir-Esmail Musavi died last Wednesday at the age of 103. His son was allowed to see the body in private Wednesday night, opposition news reports said, but he was not permitted to attend the funeral the next day.
In the small world of the Persian elite, the elder Musavi was a cousin of Javad Kha-menehi, father of the Supreme Leader.
Musavi’s personal website, kaleme.com, said that at the funeral security forces “opted to beat the mourners and arrested at least seven.”
Musavi and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, have been under house arrest since February 14. Their visit to the see the body of the elder Musavi is the only occasion since then when they have been allowed to leave the house, so far as is known. Mir-Hossain had visited his father weekly before he was put under house arrest.
Kaleme.com said mourners initially carried the coffin out of the family house and through the streets, as is the Persian tradition. But after a short distance, it said, government forces intervened, pushing the coffin into an ambulance and carrying it away.
The authorities appeared concerned that the funeral procession would become an excuse for a political demonstration.
But many mourners objected to the police intervention and scuffles erupted. That was when the authorities began beating back people and arrested several.
Those arrested were said to include Mir-Hossain Musavi’s brother-in-law and son-in-law, plus Hojatoleslam Mohammad-Reza Nur-ol-allahian, a reformist clergyman and former deputy intelligence minister, and Ali Shakuri-rad, a prominent reformist leader and former Majlis deputy. Shakuri-rad was soon released. Nur-ol-allahian was taken before the Special Clerical Court, which tries clerics and can jail or defrock them; he was later sent to Evin Prison. The fate of the others was not known.
Meanwhile, in Brussels, Catherine Ashton, the foreign policy chief for the EU, issued a statement shortly after Now Ruz calling for the “immediate and unconditional” release of Musavi and Mehdi Karrubi from house arrest.
Ashton said many EU states had asked Iran the rationale for the house arrests. She aid, “The explanations offered emphasize only that they are being detained for their own protection. This justification remains unconvincing and does not explain why they have not been allowed to communicate normally. The immediate and unconditional release of these two men would dispel the impression that the continued restrictions under which they are held constitute a means of deliberate suppression of political opposition in Iran.”
The Human Rights House of Iran (HRHI) has announced that during the last Persian year the government arrested at least 1,256 people on political charges. It said that number is based entirely on arrests either announced by the government or revealed by families. The actual number is likely to be higher.
HRHI told Radio Farda it knew the affiliations of about half of those arrested. It listed: 185 students; 165 religious minorities; 129 political activists, 129 Kurds; 43 journalists and bloggers; 40 Turkomans; 22 labor activists; 20 human rights activists, eight women’s rights activists and eight Arabs.
In other developments, the wife of Mostafa Tajzadeh, the deputy interior minister who ran elections under President Khatami, reportedly collapsed in her jail cell and lost consciousness while on a hunger strike. Kaleme.com said Fakhrossadat Mohtashemipur had been taken to a hospital.
Arrested March 1, she had gone on the hunger strike in solitary confinement to protest the refusal of officials to allow her to meet with her husband, who has been imprisoned since last August.
