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Iranian MPs request to visit imprisoned opposition leader

After news that Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi are reportedly suffering from serious illnesses, some are calling for their release.

EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on leaving the office to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.

Iran's presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi (3rd R) joins a crowd of supporters in Tehran June 17, 2009. REUTERS/Demotix (IRAN POLITICS ELECTIONS CONFLICT) - RTR24RIO
Iranian presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi joins a crowd of supporters, Tehran, Iran, June 17, 2009. — REUTERS/Demotix

After reports that opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi became ill and needed medical care, four Iranian parliamentarians requested to visit the former parliament speaker who has been under house arrest since 2011.

According to Tehran parliament member Ahmad Mazani, a member of the Reformist Central Council of Hope, the parliament members felt that visiting Karroubi would be “in the interests of the country.” Karroubi, along with Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mousavi’s wife, Zahra Rahnavard, were put under house arrest for challenging the outcome of the 2009 presidential election. Mousavi was prime minister during the 1980s. Their call for street protests against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election brought about the country’s biggest internal crisis since the post-revolutionary era.

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