So Mousavi has written a letter to Karoubi supporting him in his claims that some detainees arrested in Iran for protesting the farcical election outcome have been raped.
TEHRAN: Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi accused "establishment agents" of raping and abusing detainees imprisoned after Iran’s June presidential vote and urged the powerful clerics to do their duty and speak out.
Those who committed the crimes were the establishment’s agents," Mousavi said in a letter to reformist leader Mehdi Karoubi, the reformist mowjcamp.com website reported.
In a forthright declaration that puts the Islamic Republic’s influential top clerics on the spot, Mousavi demanded that they step in and pass judgment on a growing political scandal.
"I praise your courage and hope the other clerics join and strengthen your efforts," Mousavi’s letter said
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/...
Iranian authorities have responded by closing Karoubi's newspaper.
Karoubi's party on Monday said his newspaper, Etemad-e Melli, had been temporarily closed down by the authorities.
Etemad-e Melli's managing editor Mohammad-Javad Haqshenas, said it was closed down late on Sunday because it planned to publish a statement by Karoubi on its front-page.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
But shuttering the newspaper has done nothing to quell the uproar over these rape allegations. Mousavi has now added fuel to that righteous fire.
Your letter regarding the ugly treatment of prisoners in certain detention centers has frustrated the non-national television and the mouthpieces of the coup plotters," Mir Hossein Mousavi wrote in a letter to Karroubi that was published on numerous websites.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/...
And yet another case of sexual abuse has come to light, posted by a popular reformist website, Mowjcamp.com
According to the website, when lawmakers inspected Tehran's Evin Prison, one inmate identified by the initials A.B. stood up and began to speak out.
He told the lawmakers that before being transferred to Evin Prison he had been held at the infamous Kahrizak detention center.
There, he said, guards used their batons to rape him. He said he was still suffering and bleeding as a result of the injuries.
One overwhelmed lawmaker, Qodratullah Alikhani, reportedly could not bear hearing the details of the story and left that section of the jail.
After he spoke he was taken to a clinic for an examination, and the man was then taken away by Tehran prosecutor ("the butcher") Saeed Mortazavi himself to an unknown location, spurring worries that he had been further harmed, the report alleged
So we shall see how Iranian authorities respond to this uptick in pressure - this statement by Mousavi backing these rape allegations. Will they crackdown harder or make an ameliorating gesture?
We'll know soon....
moon