Larijani comments renew calls for release of Mousavi, Karroubi
Remarks by Iran's judiciary that the 2009 protests were not trying to overthrow the government have led to a call by an Iranian MP to end the house arrest of Green Movement leaders.
The 2009 presidential election continues to divide some of the top leadership in Iran. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election, which his opponents claimed was fraudulent, brought about the largest protests in Tehran since the 1979 revolution. The two Reformist presidential candidates, Mir Hossein Mousavi (and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard) and Mehdi Karroubi, remain under house arrest for challenging the results of the elections and calling for demonstrations. Conservatives and hard-liners immediately depicted the organizers of the protests as foreign agents determined to overthrow the Islamic Republic. Hundreds were arrested for politically motivated charges in the aftermath of the elections.
Reformists and many who voted for Mousavi were either forcibly removed from active political life or were too disillusioned with the repressive environment to vote in the following parliamentary elections. While President Hassan Rouhani’s 2013 election brought back some moderate Reformists and increased political participation, the 2009 election is still used by hard-liners in parliament to attack or impeach ministers they perceive to be too lenient on social or cultural issues. A rebirth of the “2009 sedition,” which is what the hard-liners call the 2009 election protests, still serves as a rallying cry by conservatives to push back against Rouhani and his administration.
