Rahnavard urges Iranian judiciary to prosecute opposition attackers

Zahra Rahnavard

Zahra Rahnavard, Iranian opposition figure, urged the head of Iran’s judiciary to take action against the “mob attacks” on opposition figures.

Kaleme website published the open letter to Ayatollah Larijani today in which Rahanavard condemns the attacks on Mehdi Karroubi’s home in Tehran and Ayatollah Dastgheib in Shiraz as “the strategy, assumed by the country’s security and judicial bodies, of oppressing the opposition through mob attacks.”

In her letter, Zahra Rahnavard described herself as the plaintiff for all those “who have been subjected to savage attacks in the past year.”

Rahnavard spoke out against the violent treatment of the opposition and their families in the past year, condemning raids on their homes, violations of their privacy and threats against their spouses and children.

Rahnavard urged the head of the judiciary to take action against the un-Islamic and inhumane actions of the pro-government mob that has, according to her, thrown people off the balconies at university dorms and shot at innocent people and the clergy without any fear of prosecution whilst “true and pious lovers of freedom are being kept in terrifying, lawless and unkempt prisons and denied all their rights.”

In the course of post-election protests to the alleged fraud in the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June of 2009, over four thousand people were arrested in Iran. The detainees include numerous political and human rights activists as well as prominent reform figures and journalists.

Last week, pro-government groups that have been dubbed plain clothes forces of the Basij attacked the home of disputing candidate of the elections, Mehdi Karroubi, several nights in row, shooting at his windows, vandalizing his building and chanting threatening slogans against him.

A similar attack was carried out against dissident cleric, Ayatollah Dastgheib in Shiraz.

While human rights bodies condemned the attacks and maintained that the fearless attacks reveal that these assailants are supported by the government, the Revolutionary Guards issued a statement denying any involvement in the attacks and attributed them to arbitrary crowds.

However, they failed to explain why the security forces had not acted against these attacks to counter the disturbances and restore peace.