COMMITTEE for Defence of Iranian Peoples Rights (Codir) has been  following, with growing concern, the developments under way inside Iran pertaining to protests and rallies that have been ongoing since Friday February 14.  

This date marks the 14th anniversary of the incarceration under house arrest of three of the country’s major opposition figures: former prime minister and presidential candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi; his wife, prominent academic Dr Zahra Rahnavard; as well as senior reformist clergyman and another former presidential candidate, Mehdi Karroubi.  

On Thursday, February 13, a large protest in front of the University of Tehran was broken up by regime security forces and dozens were detained. Security forces and agents from the Islamic Republic’s Ministry of Intelligence had already moved to arrest several figures, all central members of the Campaign to Lift the House Arrest, a reference to the continuing detention of Mousavi, Rahnavard, Karroubi and his wife, Fatemeh Karroubi. 

The aftermath of the dispersed protest on Thursday and the demonstrations on Friday have meant a huge security presence around the University of Tehran, the Pastor neighbourhood of Tehran (in which the closed-off residence of Mousavi and Rahnavard is located), as well as surrounding streets.

Eyewitness reports describe between 400 and 500 protesters as having initially been taken to a police station near Enghelab Square where they were held outdoors in freezing conditions before being dispatched in groups to answer a set list of questions.

Hossein Loghmanian, a member of the reformist Union of Islamic Iran People Party and veteran of the Iran-Iraq war who lost a leg defending the country, was detained along with his brother at the protest in front of the University of Tehran. Despite his background and credentials, Loghmanian has been detained and imprisoned by the Islamic Republic authorities several times before. Given his physical condition, there are grave concerns for his safety and welfare.

Rahim Qomeishi, a key organiser in the campaign, military veteran, and a prisoner of war for years in Iraq during the Saddam Hussein era, was also arrested by security forces at his address in Tehran. Qomeishi had previously gone on record as stating: “The February 13 gathering is uncancellable under any pretext. Even if those under house arrest [Mousavi, Rahnavard, and the Karroubis] are released, we will still gather to meet with them and reiterate that [other] political prisoners must also be freed. We demand the addressing of the people’s economic conditions. We want to say that no illegal action is permissible in this country, whoever it may be on the part of, and that this country belongs to all the people of Iran — not just an entitled and selected few.”

Mir-Hossein Mousavi was the last prime minister of Iran, from 1981 to 1989, before the post was abolished as one of the amendments to the country’s constitution in the wake of the death of Ayatollah Khomeini that year. He is generally regarded as having represented the more liberal tendency in the Islamic Republican movement.  

Following the abolition of his post, Mousavi was not invited to take part in the subsequent government headed by president Hashemi Rafsanjani and largely disappeared from the public sphere.
In early 2009 Mousavi stood for president, in response to demands by the masses who desired change. Mousavi was seen by many as the only candidate able to really challenge the dictatorship and deal with the multifaceted systemic crisis that had taken hold in Iran. He also had the backing of the former reformist president Mohammad Khatami (1997 to 2005) and the wider reformist movement.

His campaign for the presidency saw huge nationwide rallies take place, with the country’s women, youth, workers and pro-reform intellectuals enthusiastically getting behind his candidacy. By all accounts from election observers — including some conservatives and officials from within the regime machinery — by the end of Friday June 12 2009, the day of the ballot, it was clear that Mousavi had prevailed and won outright with a strong mandate from the people of Iran.

However, the theocratic regime, fearing what this victory might mean for the survival of the system, were simply not prepared to accept the results. By the following morning, the regime moved to silence those officials who would testify to Mousavi’s victory and then falsified the results of the previous day’s ballot on a massive scale before declaring that the incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had won a second term.  

Such was the regime’s anxiety at the prospect of Mousavi’s victory that the election was rigged in the first round rather than allowing the contest to proceed to a second-round run-off between Mousavi and Ahmadinejad.

Following the election a huge protest movement began to take shape, the Green Movement, reflecting Mousavi’s campaign theme, with connotations of an Iranian Spring, Awakening, or Green Revolution. Despite horrific levels of violence meted out to demonstrators and an announcement by the regime that any protest against the election result was illegal and would be met with force, an estimated three million Iranians took to the streets of Tehran on Monday June 15 under the slogan, “Where is My Vote?” 

The demonstration, the largest seen in Iran since the 1979 Revolution, was Mousavi’s first public appearance after the election. Packed crowds stretched back for over nine kilometres.
Over the weeks and months that followed, thousands of people were brutally attacked, arrested and detained. Numerous demonstrators and opposition activists were spirited away to the country’s notorious prisons and detention centres, as well as regime black sites across the land. Many were forcibly disappeared.

On February 14 2011, the largest Green Movement demonstrations in Iran in more than a year broke out, following public calls by both Mousavi and Karroubi for renewed demonstrations in Iran in light of the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. Mousavi, Rahnavard, and the Karroubis were placed under house arrest and their residences more or less completely cut off from the outside world.

They have remained under house arrest and in isolation ever since, while February 14 has become an annual flashpoint and rallying call for anti-regime protesters.

In February 2023, a picture of a frail Mir-Hossein Mousavi standing in the snow-covered yard of his residence was released accompanied by a statement of endorsement for the 12-point “Freedom Charter” issued by a coalition of independent trade union and civil organisations in Iran. The charter is now regarded as the authoritative statement of intent of the opposition inside Iran.

Mousavi’s public endorsement of the demands was seen as the definitive end to the claims of the right-wing and extreme nationalist monarchists abroad claiming to be the sole arbiters of the future course of developments in a post-Islamic-Republic Iran. 

Codir reiterates its unequivocal support for the campaign to free Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Zahra Rahnavard, Mehdi Karroubi, and Fatemeh Karroubi from their long and wholly unjust incarceration  This must be followed by the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners detained in Iran.

Codir demands the immediate release of all those still detained for their participation in protests over the last few days in Iran.
Codir expresses complete support for the demands articulated in the 12-point Freedom Charter jointly initiated by several of Iran’s independent trade union and civil organisations and endorsed by the main recognised opposition currents in the country.

For more information about Codir visit codir.net.