Activists begin 3-day protests for release of Green leaders

Green Movement supporters gathered outside UN headquarters in Geneva on Saturday, following calls by pro-opposition activists to protest the ongoing arrest of opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mahdi Karroubi and their wives Zahra Rahnavard and Fatemeh Karroubi.

The three-day event aims to help highlight the worsening human rights situation in Iran, in particular the continuing arrest of Green Movement leaders Mousavi and Karroubi. The timing of the sit-in is also meant to coincide with the 16th Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva from 28 February to 25 March at the Palais des Nations.

The activists and students began their demonstration at noon on Saturday while holding images of the opposition leaders and their wives who have been in complete isolation from the outside world since 14 February when Iranian protesters took to the streets in solidarity with the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. There is no information about the state of well-being of the 2009 presidential candidates and their wives.

In an interview in Geneva, Ahmadinejad’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi recently claimed that the men were “in their homes, they are living their ordinary lives.” Following the claims, Karroubi’s son Mohammad Taghi Karroubi wrote a letter to the minister criticising him for his lies while questioning Salehi’s foreign policy credentials altogether.

Green activists from more than thirty important cities across the globe will hold protests in coming days to demand the release of Mousavi and Karroubi and to call on the international community and human rights organisations as well as UN Human Rights Council to exert pressure on the Iranian authorities to halt the ongoing human rights abuses including the illegal detention of opposition leaders.

Protests will be held various cities including London, Berlin, Cologne, Frankfurt, Dortmund, Gottingen, Paris, Kuala Lumpur, New York, Washington, Amsterdam, Gothenburg, Linkoping, Wisconsin, Malmo, Hamburg, Stockholm, Ankara, Vienna, Rome, Melbourne, Los Angeles and Budapest.

Source: GVF