Shariati: Hassan Rouhani is not in favor of lifting the house arrest

Hosseini Shariati, the representative of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic in Kayhan newspaper, states that Hassan Rouhani is not in favor of lifting the house arrest of Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, two candidates who protested the results of the 2009 presidential election. According to Fars News Agency, Mr. Shariati said on Wednesday evening, February 15, during a speech regarding the case of Mehdi Hashemi, the son of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, "We must be careful of smoke grenades; these bombs are meant to distract attention from the main issue; the main point must never be forgotten, and creating margins is one of the things that is being pursued intensively these days." He added, "I can confidently say that Mr. Rouhani is not in favor of lifting the house arrest and is one of those who issued the ruling. Some raise this issue to make the main issue forgotten." Mr. Shariati did not provide further explanation about what he called this "marginalization." Hassan Rouhani had previously stated during the 2013 presidential election campaign that the next government could create a "non-security atmosphere" to release those under house arrest and those imprisoned due to protests against the 2009 presidential election results. On December 7, the President of Iran also responded to student chants during Student Day ceremonies for lifting the house arrest of the leaders of the 2009 election protests, saying, "Our path and our direction are the same as we promised you from the very beginning. Our covenant with you is unbreakable." Mohammad Baqer Nobakht, the spokesman for Hassan Rouhani's government, had previously announced that Rouhani's cabinet is quietly pursuing the lifting of the house arrest of Mr. Mousavi and Mr. Karroubi. However, on the other hand, Fatemeh Karroubi, the wife of Mehdi Karroubi, stated, "Apparently, the house arrest and illegal imprisonments are not a priority for the government friends." Nevertheless, Saham News, a website close to Mehdi Karroubi, reported on Saturday, February 11, that at the instruction of Hassan Rouhani, the issue of lifting the house arrest of Mr. Mousavi, Mr. Karroubi, and Ms. Rahnavard will be on the agenda of the next meeting of the Supreme National Security Council. This report was later denied by Keyvan Khosravi, the spokesman for the Supreme National Security Council. Previously, several reformist political groups in Iran had urged Mr. Rouhani, as the head of the Supreme National Security Council, to take action to lift the house arrest of Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi. The Combatant Clergy Association, in a statement on the anniversary of the 1979 Revolution, called on the President of Iran to fundamentally resolve the house arrest of Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi with the support of Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic. Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavi, and Zahra Rahnavard, Mr. Mousavi's wife, have been under house arrest without trial since February 2011. Regarding the case of Mehdi Hashemi, Mr. Shariati continued, "When this person's trial was held, his insistence was that the trial should not be public, and then he constantly gave interviews saying that we said the trial should be public." After the sentencing of Mohammad Reza Rahimi, the former first vice president, several conservative members of the Iranian parliament, including Hamid Rasai, Alireza Zakani, and Mohammad Dehghan, called for a decisive and swift verdict in Mehdi Hashemi's trial. Ahmad Tavakoli, a representative from Tehran in parliament, accused Mehdi Hashemi on Tuesday, February 14, in the open session of parliament of receiving $5.2 million in bribes from the Norwegian oil company StatOil. So far, twenty-five sessions of the trial of Mehdi Hashemi have been held in Branch 28 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran, presided over by Judge Mohammad Mogheiseh, and after the twenty-fifth session, the judge announced a recess for "a series of investigations, inquiries, and expert work." Previously, Mr. Hashemi's lawyers had repeatedly stated that they requested a public trial for their client.