Iran was urged to take “firm legal action” against opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, in a parliamentary report yesterday, as prosecutors denied they have been jailed.
The demand was made by a parliamentary panel following its probe into Feb. 14 anti-government protests called by Mousavi and Karroubi, whose families say the are being held in a Tehran jail.
However, Iran denies they have been detained.
The panel’s report said Western powers, including the US, were behind the protests.
“The intervention of embassies and their elements in the 2009 sedition and the February 14 American-Israeli and British rebellion is totally unacceptable,” said the report read out in parliament yesterday.
“The foreign ministry is obliged to decisively confront this illegal impudence which is contrary to international regulations,” it said.
“Those like Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who called and prepared the ground to make the nation insecure on Feb. 14, deserve firm legal action,” the report said.
Family members of the two men have said on their Web sites that Mousavi, Karroubi and their wives had been transferred to Tehran’s Heshmatiyeh jail from their residences in the Iranian capital.
Iran’s prosecutor general, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie, yesterday again rejected the reports that he had denied a day earlier.
“As I told some news agencies [on Tuesday] these people are at their homes, but some communication restrictions have been implemented against them,” Mohsenei Ejeie was quoted by state news agency IRNA a saying.
The chief prosecutor in Tehran, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, also denied the accusations yesterday.
“There is a limit to lies, and rumors of transferring Mr Mousavi and Karroubi to a prison are a sheer lie,” Dolatabadi was quoted as saying by Mehr news agency.
“Using the term house arrest is not correct. Mr Mousavi and Karroubi, along with their wives, are in their homes,” he said.
Mousavi and Karroubi, who lost to hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the 2009 presidential election, strongly oppose his government and have since guided a string of protests against his rule.
On Feb. 14, the two had sought to stage a rally in support of Arab uprisings, but their supporters turned it into the first anti-government demonstration in a year.
The ensuing clashes between protesters and security forces left two people dead.
Similar protests, but in scattered forms, were also carried out on Feb. 20 and on Tuesday, although these were largely quelled by a massive presence of security forces.
The latest demonstrations have infuriated regime-backers, with lawmakers even demanding Mousavi and Karroubi be hanged.
The parliamentary report said there was a clear need for the two to be prosecuted.
“This committee based on proof and evidence sees the need for prosecution of Mr Mousavi and Karroubi and their dependents, and frankly announces that the majlis [parliament] can no longer accept any justification for not taking action” by the judiciary against them, the report said.
After the reading of the report, parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani lashed out at the US, saying: “Iran’s response will be decisive and biting.”
Washington has criticized Tehran for moving against the two following the opposition Web site report they were jailed.
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