Tehran, August 15: After ex-presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi slammed parliament over ‘hastily denying jail rape reports’, speaker Ali Larijani has rapped him for employing ‘inappropriate tactic’.
In a letter to Karroubi released on August 14, Larijani responded to the Reformist cleric’s remarks on previous day that took a shot at the legislative branch including Larijani for adopting a ‘hasty’ approach toward the controversial ‘jail rape’ report.
Larijani said he was ‘astonished’ by Karroubi’s ‘testy and stinging remarks’ that said the Majlis had rushed into rejecting the sexual abuse report.
According to Larijani, the Majlis had received certain information on the controversial issue that appeared in cyberspace almost one month ago.
He said the Majils’ special committee tasked with investigating the post-vote incidents launched a probe into all cases it had received which amounted to ‘more than 100’ cases. There was consequently no ‘hasty’ attitude toward the issue, Larijani added.
Karroubi first raised questions about reports of sexual abuse of post-election detainees in a letter dated July 29 to Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, the Chairman of Expediency Council.
In his letter, Karroubi urged a probe into the reports of the sexual abuse of prisoners at the notorious Kahrizak detention center south of Tehran, where he had been told a number of male and female detainees were allegedly brutally raped.
On August 12, Larijani dismissed the report as a ‘lie’, saying that a ‘precise and comprehensive’ inquiry into the issue found no cases of sexual abuse.
In reaction to this denial, Karroubi, himself a former Majlis speaker, criticized officials in particular Larijani for rejecting the sexual abuse reports as a lie ‘without conducting an investigation’ into the issue.
The veteran Reformist figure said he did not expect the Majlis deputies, who were supposed to probe into the issue, “to deny the content of his letter within 24 hours and even before convening of the special committee tasked with investigating the issue,” to give a report on the controversial matter.
The defeated candidate said on July 13 that the Majlis, at the very least, could have contacted him to be informed about the evidence of the claim.
The former two-time Majlis speaker also took another shot at Larijani and said that he had rejected the reports “under pressure” and for the fear that he may lose his Speaker’s position.
In his August 14 letter, Larijani went on to add that Karroubi’s claim that the denial came under pressure was an ‘inappropriate tactic’ which can also be employed against Mr. Karroubi.
Rejecting the latest remarks by the prominent Reformist figure as projection, the Majlis speaker said: “It’s also possible to say that Karroubi has been manipulated to make such claims.”
Larijani further stressed that the Majlis committee was duty-bound to observe “justice” when dealing with such issues.
He also reacted to Karroubi’s claim that the Majlis could have contacted him to obtain information on the issue, which he says he has in his possession.
The speaker said the committee would have contacted him, if Karroubi had not made public his claim and had initially informed the committee instead of adopting a ‘hasty’ position on the matter.
Larijani added that it was the former presidential candidate, and not the Majlis, who took a “hasty” approach by adopting a stance before the Judiciary or Legislative branches had published their final reports on the issue.
The “sub-standard” detention camp of Kahrizak was shut down upon a direct order by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei in July after reports surfaced about the serious maltreatment of detainees who had been rounded up following the disputed June 12 presidential election.
After the shutdown, the head of Kahrizak detention camp was dismissed and arrested for “dereliction of duty.”
—–Agencies