Mehdi Karroubi, long a stalwart of Islamic Republic politics, twice was speaker of parliament (1989-1992, 2000-2004) and subsequently stood twice for president, facing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the eventual victor, both in 2005 and 2009. In 2005 he went to sleep with results showing him in first place, but when he woke up he was in third—and eliminated. After he subsequently alleged irregularities, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei chided him. In the 2009 elections, widely acknowledged by many Iranians, analysts, and the international press to be fraudulent, he came in fourth place out of four, with less than one percent of the vote. For Ahmadinejad the 2009 elections were a Pyrrhic victory: he won an election but largely lost legitimacy. Karroubi, on the other hand, became a symbol of relative integrity in defeat. And, with his political career largely over and therefore less willing to self-censor, he became a greater threat to the regime.
In the wake of the 2009 post-election unrest, Karroubi spoke out against detainee sexual abuse, earning him both further reprimands from ruling authorities and attacks from Basij paramilitaries and vigilantes, who, on various occasions, fired shots at and vandalized his property. After the outbreak of Arab Spring protests in Tunisia and Egypt and fearing that similar protests could erupt in Iran, Iranian security forces arrested not only Karroubi, but also Mir-Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister and unsuccessful 2009 presidential candidate, and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard. Charged initially with Mofsed-e-filarz (being “corrupt on earth”), a capital crime in Iran, the three were ultimately sentenced to house arrest on lesser charges. They were, however, still subject to abuse by the Intelligence Ministry.
Many Iranians hoped that the situation for the detained reform-minded politicians would change after Hassan Rouhani’s 2013 election. After all, he projected an image of moderation, and many analysts argued that his first-round victory was the result of capturing the hopes of reform-minded Iranians. The excerpted article, describing and reproducing an open letter from Karroubi’s wife, herself a former parliamentarian, to the intelligence minister suggests, however, that nothing has changed. Karroubi (and his associates) are still under house arrest and suffer arbitrary abuse four years after their detention. This suggests that Rouhani either has been powerless to effect change or, more likely since the intelligence minister is his own appointee, simply is disinterested in the cause of reform now that he has won his election.
Iranian authorities may also be concerned that the unrest which marked the disputed 2009 election may not be far from the surface, and so the continued arrest of reformist leaders is warranted. Regardless, it seems Rouhani’s reformism has not met the hopes of many who saw in him a possibility for change.
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