Iran Letter: Fatemeh Karroubi Writes Head of Judiciary from Her House Arrest ---- "We Have Been Denied Basic Rights"

Mehdi and Fatemeh KarroubiOpposition figures Mir Hossein Mousavi, Zahra Rahnavard, and Mehdi and Fatemeh Karroubi are now in their eighth month under strict house arrest, cut off from communication except for rare meetings with their children.

On Friday, Mehdi Karroubi's Saham News published this letter from Fatemeh Karroubi to the head of Iran's judiciary, Sadegh Amoli Larijani. It has been translated into English by Banooye Sabz:

In the Name of God Almighty,

My greetings to you Ayatollah Amoli Larijani, Head of Iran’s Judiciary. I write to you in order to describe the events Mr. Karroubi and his family have endured over the past seven months --- the event that began on  February 10th, 2011, when our residence was first surrounded by security agents and continued on February 25th, when our children and family members were banned from stopping in front of Yasaman Alley for even an instant, and when notorious plain clothes agents descended upon our neighbourhood, shouting out insults and using abusive language against my husband, Mir Hossein Mousavi and other individuals close to our noble Imam Khomeini for six consecutive nights from 1:00– 3:00 a.m. (Enclosed please find a number of audio tapes capturing the insults that were freely shouted outside our residence on the aforementioned consecutive nights.)

On the last night, in addition to using inappropriate language that led to the distress and disturbance of all those who live in the neighborhood (see tape also attached) while supported and led by security forces, the thugs outside our residence even threw sound bombs into the building, adding insult to injury.  On the anniversary of the birthday of the Prophet Mohammad, on Monday February 21st, 2011,  more than 60 security agents raided our house, disregarding all basic legal and religious standards and unlike the Savak [Shah's secret service] that was only concerned with important and valid documents, with the exception of a few items, they confiscated everything in sight, literally vacating the house and changing all the keys including the key to our bedroom.  They also arrested our son Ali who had been contacted by the same security agents regarding the raid and had come to our house to make sure we were okay, transferring him to Evin Prison on the same night.

From the very start I personally requested that they present an official warrant authorizing the raid of our residential complex, the presence of security agents inside our home and the ruling that led to the supposed house arrest. My request was never fulfilled, and with the exception of the search warrant they presented to my husband on the very first night, to date the judicial authorities have never provided us with an official court ruling authorising “our house arrest”, “the occupation of our residential complex”, and “the presence of security agents inside our home".  If we base the raid by the security forces on the words uttered by Mr. Jannati [fundamentalist cleric and Chairman of the Guardian Council] then we would have been subjected to house arrest, much like the fate of the late Ayatollah Montazeri.

What happened in reality, however, was much more cruel and considerably harder to endure than solitary confinement.  Those who have experience with the Savak [the Shah's secret police] prior to the Islamic Revolution are fully aware that the Savak never disregarded an individual’s privacy without a legal warrant.  My personal experiences during that time  and those of so many other activists are testament to this fact.  At that time, even if courts handed down a sentence leading to the house arrest of well known figures, security agents were never allowed to occupy the residential complex, home or apartment of the individual in question. (Even in 1975 when Mr. Karroubi was arrested on grounds that he colluded against the Shah's regime, we did not experience such a raid and search of our house.) Perhaps the son of Ayatollah Mirza Hashem Amoli, renowned for his piety and devotion to God, would be interested to know that during this raid, men who on the surface claimed to be religious, insisted upon searching all my personal belongings without any regard for modesty and Islamic values.

In the past 210 days, Mr. Karroubi has been denied the basic rights afforded to every prisoner, such as the access to books, newspapers, telephone contact, regular visitations and even fresh air. According to Mr. Karroubi’s accounts of his various arrests in the past, including the time when he was incarcerated at Ghaz Ghaleh prison, after one or two weeks of solitary confinement, he was eventually allowed access to fresh air. This time around however, after six months of house arrest, he was still denied access to fresh air in a yard surrounded by iron bars. As a result, Mr. Karroubi’s physical well being is at great risk, rendering his examination by independent physicians trusted by the family both necessary and essential.

The current situation and the refusal of the ruling government to recognize the rights of a prisoner who is under the jurisdiction of security agents without judicial due process, has led to extreme physical and psychological pressure on my husband.  My concerns are not regarding the events that have occurred, for as I have repeatedly explained, my husband has prepared himself for conditions far worse than this.  What is unfortunate and regretful, however, are the acts of a group of individuals who justify their illegal behavior based on unwritten laws and do as they please all in the name of governance.

Allow me to point to a recent example that was particularly strange and out of the ordinary. After our residential complex was occupied, the other homeowners were deprived of their legal rights while security agents began benefiting from their ownership rights.  This unlawful seizure led to numerous complaints by Mr. Karroubi, including a letter addressed to Tehran’s Prosecutor. From the very first day, Mr. Karroubi announced that he would be willing to move to any location including Evin Prison, but he would never agree to the unlawful seizure of property belonging to the other owners of the residential complex in which we live.  After five months of consultations [with government officials], our children arranged for a house in Jamaran to be prepared so that the illegal house arrest that had been imposed without a warrant or ruling by the judiciary could continue at a new location without causing any further harm and restrictions upon the other home owners. After complying with all their requests we were informed by security agents that Jamaran is not an appropriate location and they must decide on the final location for Karroubi’s continued house arrest. After my husband insisted on moving,  on July 31st, he was temporarily transferred together with a number of security agents to a one-bedroom apartment, making it impossible for me to be present. This small apartment has hosted Karroubi and his various prison guards for the past 45 days. It goes without saying that no matter where the security agents take him, that location will never be considered his home.

Security officials cognisant of the family’s concerns regarding Mr. Karroubi’s health, particularly as it relates to his cardiovascular and respiratory well being, allowed him to leave our residence, announcing that he is allowed to move to a new location, stating:

1) We will decide on the new location

2) The person signing the rental agreement cannot be a member of the family

3) The person signing the rental agreement must provide pre-signed checks, covering the rent for a duration of one year, without knowledge of the address and/or other details regarding the location where Mr. Karroubi will be held.

As a result of these demands, we provided them with a down payment last month and they received the rest of the checks from a former member of Karroubi’s office who was asked to sign and deliver the checks.  It looks as though the latest trend is for the ruling government to make the family pay for the cost of incarceration and prison guards so that they can tell the world that Karroubi is under arrest in his own home! My husband is willing and prepared to pay any price, but we cannot deny that in order to intimidate him, they are imposing a collective punishment on his entire family. God only knows that my husband continues to fight with the same fervor that he had in 1962 at the height of his youth when he entered politics and became an activist. During all these years his determination has never wavered and he continues to stand strong behind his covenant with the people and our martyrs and the noble ideals and promises of the Islamic Revolution.

Do you truly believe that you will find one rational human being on this planet who will confirm that Karroubi is at home rather than under imposed house arrest?  Will the silence by the judiciary not lead to a new trend in which security institutions will impose the costs associated with such house arrests on the shoulders of the families of those arrested? Is this type of behaviour worthy of the Islamic Republic? Although you are fully aware that this newly devised and ridiculous tactic will be recorded in history as such,  the family has nevertheless chosen to comply with your demands in order to protect the physical well-being of Mr. Karroubi.

In conclusion I am obliged to refer you to the words of Imam Ali, the father of deism who stated: ” As God is my witness, I prefer to lay on thorns, deprive myself of all sleep and be shackled in chains, rather than having to meet God on judgment day knowing that I have wronged any of his children.”

Fatemeh Karroubi
September 22nd, 2011