Mousavi and Karoubi Arrested: Iran's Ticking Time Bomb
The Daily Beast / Omid Memarian
01-Mar-2011

There was another day of protests across Iran Tuesday, following the arrests of two main opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, leading experts to say if the government had any doubts that the Green movement was alive despite serious crackdowns—including a rash of executions and arrests—they should be gone.

Starting last Thursday, the two dissident leaders and their wives, Fatemeh Karroubi and Zahra Rahnavard, were cut off from the outside world for two days.

“As a first step, their communications, including comings and goings and telephone contact has been limited, and if need be, other steps will be taken," warned a spokesman for the Iranian Judiciary by Monday.

The same day, opposition web site, Kaleme, announced Karroubi, Mousavi and their wives, had been transferred to Heshmatieh Prison in eastern Tehran. But the semi-official Fars News Agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), denied news of the two leaders' imprisonment, and said they remained inside their homes.

Their alleged jailing represents the biggest ever rift among high-ranking Iranian officials since the 1979 revolution. Mousavi was Iran’s prime minister for 8 years. Karroubi was Speaker of Parliament. Both were very close allies to Ayatollah Khomeini, the father of the Islamic Republic. And now they’re most probably in jail, though no one knows their whereabouts for sure. As Georg Buchner, the German philosopher... >>>

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