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Iran dissident Karroubi, wife in ‘good health’

The Karroubis were allowed to host their son Sunday night to celebrate Norouz, or Iranian New Year, according to Karroubi’s opposition website Sahamnews.net.

“With the coordination and presence of the security services, my wife and myself were able to meet and dine with my dear parents (...) who are in good health,” the website quoted Ali Karroubi, himself detained recently, as saying.

Meanwhile fellow opposition leader and former prime minister Mir Hossein Moussavi and his wife “were able to meet his father in the presence of security agents,” according to the website of ultra-conservative daily newspaper Javan.

Mehdi Karroubi and his wife Fatemeh were put under “complete” house arrest in early February after calling for an anti-regime protest to take place in the middle of that month.

Thousands gathered at a February 14 demonstration at which an unknown number were injured and many were arrested.

Minor rallies were organised for February 20 and March 1, despite a massive police presence.

Opposition websites appealed for demonstrations on March 8 and 15, but no reports surfaced of any demonstrations in Tehran, where security forces were deployed in numbers.

Opposition websites erroneously reported at the end of February that Karroubi and Moussavi had been jailed.

The authorities have branded the two men, who have never accepted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed June 2009 re-election, as “counter-revolutionary” traitors and threatened them with legal action.

Ali Karroubi, who was arrested about a month ago, had been released from jail on bail of one billion rials ($90,000, or 63,000 euros), according to Sahamnews.