Source:
April 17, 2010

Opposition leader Mahdi Karroubi has met with the family of imprisoned political activist Bahareh Hedayat. The meeting took place on the afternoon of Friday 16 April. Bahareh Hedayat is a member of the central council of the reformist Office for Fostering Unity and also the head of the group’s public relations.

The Saham News website which belongs to Karroubi’s National Trust Party reported that during the meeting her the family, Ms Hedayat’s husband provided Mr Karroubi with information on recent developments about his wife’s judicial case and the charges against her and criticised the baseless accusations against civil and students rights activists.

“It is unfortunate that decades after a revolution which had freedom of speech as one of its core ideals, we see that one of the many accusations against Ms Hedayat is ‘heresy’ just because they named one of the days of the year as they day for freedom of expression,” her husband told the former speaker of parliament.

Karroubi expressed his criticism towards the treatment of political, civil and student activists but said, “despite the increasing pressure on different sectors of the population especially against the educated, political and civil activists as well as those arrested during the recent [post-election] events, we can see the public’s [warm] reaction in welcoming back the prisoners and sympathising with them,” Karroubi said.

“This in itself is a sign that the radicals’ project in using violence against the people’s rights has suffered defeat.”

He added that the authorities’ use of brute force did not only deter the public from demanding their rights but actually caused further dissatisfaction among towards the current situation. He also expressed hope that all prisoners would return to their society and their families as soon as possible.

It should be noted that many of the Office for Fostering Unity’s members were arrested following the rigged presidential election of June 2009. The group was one of the first in Iran who endorsed Karroubi’s in the election.