15/02/2013 Political Affairs and Democracy
Strasbourg, 15.02.2013 – “The Iranian government should immediately and unconditionally release the Iranian Green Movement leaders, who have been held under arbitrary house arrest for exactly two years,” said Pietro Marcenaro (Italy, SOC), Chairperson of the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
He was speaking on the occasion of the second anniversary of the de facto house arrest of former Presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, as well as Zahra Rahnavard, Mr Mousavi’s wife, an author and a political activist, who have been deprived of their most basic rights for the past two years.
The three opposition leaders were arrested in February 2011 after they called for demonstrations in support of the Arab uprisings. “No charges have been brought against any of the opposition leaders and they have had no trials, therefore their continuing house arrest violates not only international law but also Iranian law,” said Mr Marcenaro. He also called upon the Iranian authorities to cease harassing or detaining without any legal grounds the detainees’ children, who were summoned and questioned earlier this week.
Since the post-election dispute in June 2009, and as Iran prepares for new presidential elections in four months, hundreds of opposition figures, journalists, bloggers, students, lawyers and other human rights defenders remain in prison. A new wave of arrests against journalists started at the end of January 2013.
“I join the various UN bodies, human rights organisations and many governments around the world in calling upon the Iranian authorities to honour their international commitments and release all persons who have been arbitrarily detained for exercising their right to freedom of expression, assembly or association. Unless the crackdown and policy of harassment and intimidation against the opposition and the press end, there can be no conditions for holding free and fair elections in June this year,” added Mr Marcenaro.
The Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy held an exchange of views on the political and human rights situation in Iran with an Iranian opposition delegation on 21 January 2013.