Opposition leader’s wife says family has no security

Source:

April 25, 2010

TEHRAN – The wife of Iranian opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi has charged that armed men raided their home and warned that the country’s Islamic regime would be held responsible if family members are harmed, a report said Sunday.

“Mehdi Karroubi’s family lacks even the minimum security because of the open and unwavering support it has given to oppressed people,” Fatemeh Karroubi said in a statement carried by Sahamnews, Karroubi’s website.

“I insist, if anything happens to me, my husband or children the regime is directly responsible and can never shrug off responsibility,” she said.

“Fifteen armed men intimidated the caretaker and illegally broke into our home in our absence,” she added, without specifying when the incident took place.

She also said that “suspicious gas was directly fired” into Karroubi’s face during a march on the anniversary of the Islamic revolution on February 11.

Karroubi’s Tehran apartment building was vandalized in March by a group of hardliners whom his wife branded as “thugs” paid by “corrupt” government officials.

Karroubi and main opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi have led a protest movement against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after his June re-election, which they reject as massively rigged.

Karroubi, an outspoken reformist cleric and two-time parliament speaker, has especially angered hardliners backing Ahmadinejad by charging some post-vote detainees had been raped in custody.

The authorities have denied this but grudgingly admitted widespread prisoner abuse had been committed in notorious Kahrizak jail, south of Tehran.

Hardliners have stepped up pressure on opposition figures and reformist former president Mohammad Khatami was reportedly prevented from travelling to Japan this month.