June 17, 2016
Seventy academics from American and Canadian universities have written President Rohani urging him to break his silence on the house arrests of three opposition figures.
In a letter written on the seventh anniversary of the disputed 2009 presidential election, the signatories asked Rohani to use his position to speak out about the plight of Mir-Hossain Musavi, his wife Zahra Rahnavard and Mehdi Karrubi.
The three critics have been confined to their homes since February 2011. Musavi and Karrubi were among the four presidential candidates in the 2009 vote, the disputed result of which gave Mahmud Ahmadi-nejad a second term.
While acknowledging Ro-hani’s limited ability to intervene in the affairs of the’Judiciary, the academics said the president should speak out to protest what they called a “grave miscarriage of justice.”
“For over six years, they have faced the hardships of unwarranted punishment, and all three suffer from multiple ailments. They are, respectively, 79, 75 and 71,” read the letter, first published by The Guardian on Tuesday.
MIT’s Noam Chomsky, City University of New York’s Ervand Abrahamian and Duke University’s Mohsen Kadivar are among the signatories.
“No legal system among nations, including Islamic law that forms the basis of the legal system in the Islamic Republic of Iran, justifies the punishment of citizens without due legal process. Placing political dissidents under house arrest is a transparent example of such persecution.
“What compels us to address our letter to you is to protest against your silence toward this grave miscarriage of justice. Unless and until effective steps are taken by your administration to address this situation, including preparing the grounds for a public legal trial of the accused in a credible court, the international community will not be convinced of your adminis-tration’s resolve to make effective domestic reforms.”
Rohani spoke against the house arrests while he campaigning for president in 2013, but he fell silent after he took office. The house arrests were ordered personally by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi and only he can end them. It is widely assumed that Khamenehi ordered Rohani’s silence on the issue.
Musavi and Rahnavard’s house, down a dead-end alley in Tehran, is under constant heavy guard by the police. Karrubi is under similar restraint in the Jamaran neighborhood in north Tehran.
The three have largely been kept incommunicado, although they have periodically been allowed visits by some immediate family members. There are serious concerns about their health: an image of Musavi that emerged in May 2014 showed him in a Tehran hospital bed due to a heart condition.
Speaking to The Guardian Tuesday, Karrubi’s son, Mohammad-Taghi Karrubi, said, “Two years and four months ago, my father was transferred to his private residence in Jamaran after previously being kept in accommodation belonging to the intelligence apparatus.
“Not much has changed. The guards stay on the lower floor, while my dad lives on the upper floor with my mom. Family visits by his children [and] his access to newspapers have got slightly better, but, apart from that, the situation is the same,” he said.
Unlike Rahnavard, Kar-rubi’s wife, Fatemeh, is currently allowed to leave the house.
Karrubi has undergone six operations since his movements have been restricted, his son said, five of which the son said derive from the problems of house arrest.