Twin moves over the weekend suggest the regime is tiring of opposition leaders’ refusal to tone down their criticisms.
An Iranian judicial committee has accused former presidential candidates Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi of fabricating evidence, less than 48 hours after Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned opposition leaders of a “harsh response” should they continue to challenge the government.
The twin moves over the weekend were widely seen as strong signals that the government was preparing to arrest the two opposition leaders, who have been at the center of the unprecedented upheaval following Iran’s disputed presidential elections
A judicial committee set up to investigate allegations that opposition supporters had been raped at detention centers ruled that the documents presented as evidence had been fabricated. In an apparent reference to Moussavi and Karroubi, the committee’s findings were sent to a court to prepare charges against those who “propagated lies and false accusations.”
The move came as the Supreme National Council, which is led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, banned newspapers from writing anything about Mr. Moussavi and Mr. Karroubi, just a day after Khamaenei had warned opposition leaders that “lies and rumors” would face a “harsh response," and a week after government officials raided both Moussavi and Karroubi’s offices to seize evidence intended to substantiate allegations of abuse in Iran’s prisons.
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While Karroubi made the allegations of rape, Moussavi has alleged that dozens of opposition supporters have been tortured and murdered in Iran’s detention centers. Both men have continued to criticize the ruling regime over the country’s disputed June presidential elections and the violence that followed.
"Claiming that they fabricated documents is the first step in setting the environment for arresting them," Pujan Ziaie, a member of Karroubi’s presidential campaign, told The Media Line. "No matter what steps the regime takes, without arresting them, Karroubi and Moussavi are not going to stop challenging the government."
Ziaie said the expectation is that if the two opposition leaders are arrested, it would take place within weeks.
"The government is just buying time for the right moment to arrest them," he said. "It’s hard to know when, but probably before the universities re-open in two or three weeks. If they wait to arrest them while the universities are in session, the reaction will be much greater than if they did it now."
Dr Mehrdad Khonsari, a Senior Research Consultant at the Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies in London, argued that the Iranian government was struggling to repress dissent without adding to public distrust of the state.
"When Khamenei speaks at Friday prayers he must address the opposition and read the riot act," he told The Media Line. "It’s not surprising and really the only thing he can do. The judiciary too, has to deny these allegations."
"The problem for the government is that the public will never believe such a denial, and there is a growing ‘believability gap’ between what the government says and what the public believes," he said.
Khonsari said it was unlikely Moussavi or Karroubi would be arrested.
"The crime that Moussavi and Karroubi are accused of – advocating protest against the Islamic government – is very serious," he warned. "Key people have been convicted and sentenced to death for doing much less."
"At the same time there is a reluctance in the government’s desire to arrest them," he said. "First, they don’t want to upset the public even further. But more importantly, Moussavi and Karroubi essentially can’t do anything. They are totally impotent. So if the government was to arrest them, they would make Moussavi and Karroubi bigger than what they are."