Khatami Urges Rouhani to Resolve House Arrest Issue

Mohammad Khatami, former president of Iran, urged Hassan Rouhani to become 'active' and fulfill his promise to lift the house arrest of Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavi, and Zahra Rahnavard. The website Kaleme reported that Khatami made these remarks on Tuesday night, April 21, during a meeting at the Baran Foundation. He stated that he believes the 'system' and the leader of the Islamic Republic 'want' this issue to be resolved. 'Of course, I am expressing my own opinion. In my view, the system definitely wants this issue to be resolved,' he said. According to Khatami, 'some openings have occurred, but it is not enough. It must be resolved. Go and solve this issue.' The former president emphasized again the 'desire' of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to lift the house arrest, adding, 'The organization that should resolve this issue is either being sluggish or is incapable, or whatever, and this is where Mr. President and other friends must become active and resolve it.' Khatami explicitly stated that 'when the President makes promises that are not fulfilled or, God forbid, the opposite occurs, problems arise. If it is said that the house arrest should be lifted, then this promise must be fulfilled.' He also added that he expresses these views even though they may increase his own 'restrictions,' and 'there is no problem if that issue is resolved.' Khatami, who has been under pressure and restrictions from security officials for years and is known as one of the 'leaders of the sedition,' did not provide a specific explanation regarding what he referred to as Khamenei's 'agreement' to lift the house arrest. While he spoke of the positive request from the Supreme Leader in this regard, Ali Motahari, the deputy speaker of the Parliament, had previously mentioned Khamenei's view on the continuation of the house arrest. Mojtaba Zolnour, another member of Parliament who is one of the few people who has met with Mehdi Karroubi during his house arrest, reported a 'halt' in the process of lifting the house arrest of the Green Movement leaders and a 'backward' movement on this issue. Zolnour stated in an interview with the Akhtar Telegram channel that 'those who said the house arrest would be lifted before the New Year had no evidence, documents, or backing and expressed their opinions without rational and legal support.' He claimed that the path to lifting the house arrest was 'positively' progressing, 'but politicians who profit from the house arrest and have various platforms for shouting slogans and attracting audiences from specific groups, when they saw positive actions taking place, threw a banana peel under Mr. Karroubi's feet so that he would take a position that would prevent any action from being taken to lift the house arrest.' This representative added that after Mehdi Karroubi's letter to Ali Khamenei from house arrest, 'currently, the house arrest will not be lifted. Because with the letter that Karroubi wrote, the situation has changed, and now Mousavi and Karroubi must accept responsibility for their actions for any flexibility from the system to occur.' His reference is to Karroubi's open letter to Khamenei published in February, in which Karroubi held him responsible for the current political, economic, cultural, and social situation in Iran and called for 'creating the ground for structural reform of the system.' According to the Saham News website, close to Karroubi, he wrote in his letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei published on Tuesday, February 10, 'Given your level of presence and influence at the highest levels of the system's power, you must accept that the current political, economic, cultural, and social situation in the country is a direct result of your strategic and executive policies.' Mehdi Karroubi added, 'For three decades, you have been at the head of the system, and you still speak from the position of an opposition... Accountability is the duty of all officials of the system, and you, who have changed the functions of institutions and organizations such as the IRGC, Basij, Guardian Council, revolutionary institutions, Friday prayer leaders, and state media according to your views and policies, must pay more attention to this important matter.' Mohammad Taghi Karroubi, Mehdi Karroubi's son, also stated in an interview with Saham News that 'three members of the security apparatus' in a meeting with Fatemeh Karroubi, his mother, announced that Mehdi Karroubi's letter to the Supreme Leader has prevented his house arrest from being lifted. According to Mohammad Taghi Karroubi, Fatemeh Karroubi told these security officials that 'if there is sincerity in your words, then end the house arrest of Engineer Mousavi and Mrs. Rahnavard, who have not written a letter.' Behrouz Nemati, a member of the Parliament's presiding board, also stated on the first of Farvardin that Mehdi Karroubi's letter to the Supreme Leader has caused a pause in the process of lifting the house arrest. Ali Motahari also mentioned 'differences of opinion between judicial and security officials' as one of the reasons that has prevented the lifting of the house arrest of the leaders of the 2009 protests, contrary to some promises. Just days before Motahari's remarks, Masoud Pezeshkian, the first deputy speaker of Parliament, and Elias Hazrati, a member of Parliament and head of the executive council of the National Trust Party, had called on Hassan Rouhani, as the head of the Supreme National Security Council, to fulfill his promise to lift the house arrest of the leaders of the protests against the results of the 2009 presidential election. Mehdi Karroubi, along with Mir Hossein Mousavi and Zahra Rahnavard, as the leaders of the protests against the 2009 election results, have been under house arrest since February 2011, and requests to end their house arrest or to put them on trial have not yielded results so far. Previously, some members of Parliament and officials of Hassan Rouhani's government had expressed hope that their house arrest would be lifted by the end of 2017. Officials of Hassan Rouhani's government have repeatedly promised to pursue the lifting of the house arrest, but this issue, which was also one of Hassan Rouhani's electoral slogans, has not yet been realized. The families of Mousavi and Karroubi and several political activists have criticized the Rouhani government for not taking practical action to lift the house arrest. However, in recent months, changes have occurred in the situation of the house arrest, and in addition to several political activists successfully having individual visits with Mr. Karroubi, the restrictions regarding the scheduling of visits of Mir Hossein Mousavi and Zahra Rahnavard with their daughters have also been lifted.