Jahangiri on Lifting the House Arrest of Green Movement Leaders: God Willing Next Year

The First Vice President of Iran announced that the Secretariat of the Supreme National Security Council has taken 'good actions' to lift the house arrest of the leaders of the Green Movement, expressing hope that this will happen next year. According to ILNA news agency, Eshaq Jahangiri said on Sunday, March 17, that the Secretariat of the Supreme National Security Council has made 'good efforts regarding lifting the house arrest'. He added: 'Some had the impression that the decision to lift the house arrest would be finalized by the end of 2018, but nothing happened; however, God willing, this important issue will also happen next year.' Two days prior to these remarks, Ali Motahari, Deputy Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, stated that 'senior security and intelligence officials' had promised that the house arrest of the Green Movement leaders would be lifted by the end of the year, but they did not fulfill this promise, and he is not hopeful that the house arrest will be lifted by the end of the year. Motahari and some other members of parliament had expressed hope in recent months that the house arrest of the Green Movement leaders would be lifted by Nowruz (Persian New Year). Meanwhile, Ali Younesi, an advisor to Hassan Rouhani on ethnic and religious minorities, said on March 5 that he was unaware of Motahari's comments but added: 'We know that the restrictions are coming to an end.' On the same day, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, spokesman for the Iranian judiciary, reiterated that the Supreme National Security Council has made 'no changes' in its 'resolution' regarding the house arrest of the leaders of the 2009 protests, but if the council's resolution changes, they will be tried. In contrast, Hassan Rouhani and his government officials have denied the existence of a resolution in the Supreme National Security Council regarding their house arrest. Mehdi Karroubi, along with Mir Hossein Mousavi and Zahra Rahnavard, as the leaders of the 2009 election protestors, have been under house arrest since February 2011, and requests for an end to their house arrest or trials have not yielded results. Previously, officials of Hassan Rouhani's government had repeatedly promised to pursue the lifting of the house arrest, but this issue, which was also part of Rouhani's electoral slogans, has remained unresolved. In this regard, the families of Mousavi and Karroubi and several political activists have criticized the Rouhani government for not taking practical steps to lift the house arrest. However, in recent months, changes have occurred in the house arrest situation, and in addition to several political activists successfully meeting with Karroubi, restrictions on the scheduling of meetings between Mir Hossein Mousavi and Zahra Rahnavard with their daughters have also been lifted. Heather Nauert, spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, on February 15, at the end of the seventh anniversary of the house arrest of Rahnavard, Mousavi, and Karroubi, issued a statement calling for their freedom and the freedom of all political prisoners who are 'unjustly' imprisoned. While some conservative figures have stated that the condition for lifting the house arrest is an 'apology' from the Green Movement leaders, Mehdi Karroubi, in an open letter to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic published on January 30, held him responsible for the current political, economic, cultural, and social situation in Iran and called for 'creating the grounds for structural reform of the system.'