The former presidential candidate Mehdi Karrubi, detained since backing anti-regime protests in 2009, has reportedly been released from detention and given house arrest, following months of speculation over whether or not Iran would free certain dissidents or political prisoners.
The politician’s son Hossein Karrubi told the semi-official ISNA agency that “in security terms conditions have not changed, he has merely returned to his home,” in northern Tehran.” Since returning home on Saturday, he is not allowed to watch cable television or have access to the Internet, but can watch Iranian television and receive visits once a week, his son said, according to the Kar va Kargar newspaper. Karrubi, who served twice as parliamentary speaker, became one of the main faces of Iran’s “Green” opposition movement ahead of the 2009 vote, and was eventually detained along with leading reformist candidate Mirhossein Mousavi, who remains in detention.
-Ahmad Shayegan
