Mehdi Karroubi: Apparently, the fate of house arrest is determined by Azrael

Mehdi Karroubi, one of the leaders of the protests following the 2009 presidential election, has pointed out that there seems to be no end to the illegal house arrest, stating that it appears that the fate of the house arrest is determined by Azrael, "who either we leave earlier or the other one." In the approximately eight years since the house arrest of Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavi, and Zahra Rahnavard, several officials of the Islamic Republic have stated that the main decision-maker on this issue is Ayatollah Khamenei. This letter, dated June 9, was addressed to the members of the Central Council of the "National Trust Party" and was published on Wednesday on the website of Saham News, affiliated with this party. In his new letter, Karroubi described the house arrest as "illegal, arbitrary, and unilateral" and noted that "no one holds themselves accountable for it," stating that only the death of one of the parties could end this detention. Karroubi referred to the 2009 presidential election as "ridiculous and scripted," claiming that the incumbent president was "installed with a 7 million vote increase" and that the people's protests against "fraud and engineered elections" were violently suppressed. He also mentioned that after the 2009 elections, his personal office, the party building, and the National Trust newspaper were all confiscated, considering this "heavy cost" as the price for his warning letters "in protest against the brutal suppression of protesters." The protests following the presidential election were met with bloody reactions from security forces. According to government statistics, at least 30 people were killed in these protests, but human rights groups and non-governmental sources report a much higher number of victims, and the follow-up committee for Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi presented a list of over 70 killed to the Islamic Consultative Assembly in September 2009. In addition to street killings, several detainees were also killed in the Kahrizak detention center, and reports of torture of detainees have also been published. The leader of the Islamic Republic and his associates refer to the protests following the 2009 elections as "sedition." In his letter to the Central Council of the National Trust Party, Karroubi has asked them for the second time to agree to his resignation from the position of secretary-general of this party. The National Trust Party was founded by Mehdi Karroubi in 2005 and began its work under his secretary-generalship. However, in recent years, after his house arrest, Rasul Montajabnia has taken over the management of this party as his deputy. Karroubi's new letter was published five days after the second national congress of the National Trust Party faced tensions. The first congress of this party in 2016 also opposed Karroubi's resignation from the secretary-generalship.