TEHRAN — Iran’s new judiciary chief has called for the swift release of some protesters jailed in the aftermath of the disputed June presidential election, newspapers on Tuesday quoted a prominent MP as saying.
“Ayatollah (Sadeq) Larijani said it is necessary to release immediately a group of detainees,” said Kazem Jalali, spokesman for a parliamentary panel set up to look into the unrest that followed the poll.
Jalali, who met Larijani on Monday, said the judiciary chief also “insisted that the defendants’ trials should fully respect the penal proceedings code,” the reformist Sarmayeh newspaper said.
The June 12 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sparked massive street protests in Tehran in which 4,000 people were initially arrested and at least 30 — and by opposition accounts 69 — people were killed.