Tehran, August 21: After ex-presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi offered to present evidence on jail rape, Parliament says it is ready to consider if any pertinent documents are available.
Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani on Thursday repeated his earlier demand that solid evidence be presented to the Parliament on the controversial issue. He said Parliament was ready to study the evidence upon Karroubi’s request.
“I announced that they submit evidence if any relevant documents are available,” Larijani said. “If Mr. Karroubi is willing we will listen to him,” the speaker added, promising to pursue the matter if any concrete evidence is provided.
Larijani went on to say that Parliament did not intend to whitewash the issue but was quite resolute in resolving problems.
“We do not want by any means to cover up the issue or conceal the facts from the public.”
Karroubi first raised questions about the reports of sexual abuse of post-election 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.
His claims were then rejected as a ‘lie’, with Larijani arguing that a thorough and comprehensive’ inquiry into the issue found no cases of sexual abuse.
Karroubi, adamant in his claim, once again brought up the issue in a letter to Larijani on Wednesday.
He called on the speaker to organize a meeting with the country’s top officials so that he can present evidence of the alleged sexual assault.
“I ask you to organize a meeting with the heads of the three branches of the government — Judiciary, Legislative and Executive — and the head of the Expediency Council and the Assembly of Experts and the country’s prosecutor general… along with a representative from the special Majlis committee tasked with probing the situation in Iranian prisons so that I can present my documents and evidence on the issue of rape in some prisons in their presence,” Karroubi said.
Based on Karroubi’s request, the meeting would be attended by newly-appointed Judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani, Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, two-time former President Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani and the state prosecutor Qorban-Ali Dorri-Najafabadi.
The leading opposition figure then concluded his letter by saying that he was awaiting Parliament’s ‘quick and well-thought-out action’ on the matter.
The ‘non-standard’ prison 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 mistreatment of detainees who protested against the result of the disputed presidential vote.
After the closure of the facility, the head of the prison was removed of his responsibilities and arrested for ‘dereliction of duty’. Two of the ‘security and supervisory’ officials, who had ordered unauthorized interrogation techniques, were relieved of duty as well.
Twelve Iranian police officers and one judge were also removed from their posts in connection with the notorious detention center and are now awaiting prosecution.
—–Agencies