Following the public outrage over the June 12 coup and the wide arrests of protesters that followed, extensive unofficial news reports about the rape of detainees have appeared across the country and in the news media. But with the publication of Mehdi Karoubi’s letter which expressly raises the possibility of rape inside Iranian prisons, the debate over sexual abuses in the detention centers of the Islamic republic has been elevated to a new height based on ‘reliable’ evidence and news reports. This is because there is hardly anyone who doubts Karoubi’s loyalties to the essence of the current Islamic regime. A man with Karoubi’s record and traits would never publicly raise such an accusation unless he was absolutely certain of its validity.
In view of past events and the scandals such as the ones related to Kahrizak illegal detention center, public opinion is now fully ripe to accept such charges against the coup administration. Interestingly, the hasty and angry responses of Ahmadinejad’s supporters to Karoubi’s letter were such that they have actually added more fuel to the public anger. One example of these hasty responses is the remarks that Larijani made. With just a simple sentence, he called “All the accusations to be absolutely false” and in an astonishing comment asked Karoubi to present his evidence! One must ask that under conditions in which reports of news and torture continuously pour out of Iranian prisons while even Majlis deputies are not allowed to inspect the closed detention centers, how one can believe the assertions made by government officials. And now that prison rape has turned into a national debate, does Mr. Larijani and others like him honestly believe that by that a simple official denial can pacify the impaired opinion of the Iranian nation?
This issue must be clarified, and the way to do is through an independent investigative team as Mehdi Karoubi has recommended. If Mr. Larijani and his friends are confident that no rapes have taken place in Iranian prisons, then they must have nothing to fear regarding the creation of an independent investigative team.
As a recommendation to materialize Karoubi’s proposal the investigative team can comprise of the following individuals: The head of the Experts Assembly on Leadership (or his representative), a representative of the State Expediency Council, a representative from the majority Majlis faction, a representative of the Majlis minority faction, the head of the judiciary, the highest ranking judge in the supreme court, the attorney general, the president of the bar association, one of the two protesting presidential candidates (Karoubi or Mousavi), editors of one pro-government and one reformist newspaper, and finally a trusted attorney such as Hossein Mehrpour who is among jurists acceptable by the Islamic republic while at the same time enjoying respect in the country’s legal community. These individuals form a community that is widely perceived as ‘the family of the state’, so nobody can fear the creation of an investigative team whose members are from within the family, and especially those who authoritatively say that no rape has taken place in the prisons of the Islamic republic.
Is Mr. Larijani ready to take the initiative and pursue the creation of this team? I doubt Mr. Larijani will do this, or that his friends will consent to it, because they know the ‘truth’ better than anybody else, even though they verbally deny it.
In any case it appears that the opponents of the coup government should not permit this issue to be forgotten, and must pursue Karoubi’s letter and prove false the claims of the coup perpetrators. This is a good test for clarifying the depth of sincerity of officials such as Mr. Larijani.
