The Need For An Independent Fact Finding Commission

Roozonline - While some social, media and political activists in Iran have already concluded that Hassan Rouhani’s honeymoon period with those who supported him has ended, the minister of justice of his administration, using language more befitting Ahmadinejad’s administration and reminiscent of the days when he was active in intelligence-security work, has labeled the events that have been reported to have taken place on Eid Ghadeer festivities (a day commemorated by Shiites to be of historical significance) at the house of Mir-Hossein Mousavi as a “media blitz”.

With the intelligence and fairness that I know of Hassan Rouhani, I doubt it very much that he shares the views of a minister who in reality represents the head of the judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, in his “moderate” administration.

I personally seriously doubt that the head of the tenth (current) administration would, within the first hundred days of his office, provide his old opponents and new critics evidence that would, more than anything else, demonstrate his break with reformists and his distance from the transformationalists, both of whom played a key role in his victory in this June’s presidential election. More than that, this alone could be proof of the end of the honeymoon, especially with the senior clerics in Ghom, Shiraz, etc and even such reformist leaders as seyed Mohammad Khatami and the religious-political activists such as Abdollah Nouri who just recently visited Mousavi and Rahnavard daughters and spoke with Kowkab and Nargess on the phone, expressing the cruelty and pain they have been subjected to because of the house arrest of their parents.

While the administration’s position that it will not “interfere in the creation of a committee to lift the house arrest of Mousavi and Karoubi” are understandable in light of the government’s announced political and cultural policies, it does not seem plausible that Rouhani would agree with Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi’s contention that the reported attack – slapping and biting - of Mousavi’s daughters was nothing but media’s fabrications. This is so because such remarks are neither “foresightful” nor “hope-generating,” the two attributes with which the administration likes to be associated with.

At a time when sophisticated surveillance tools are widely used in Iran and the world, the justice minister’s remarks that “surveillance is a normal activity that is also carried out in the Islamic republic, like other countries” can also be acceptable, but it is doubtful that Mr. Pour-Mohammadi would personally allow and consent that Mousavi and his family members, such as his relatives and his children, be “frisked” or that Mousavi’s wife and daughters be stripped naked, exposing their bodies to the agents around them or commit other similar acts that cannot be put on paper here.

I would like to inform Mr. Rouhani that frisking and bodily checkups are a normal state of affairs in Iran’s prisons these days and that political and ideological prisoners are routinely forced to take their clothes off and remain naked so that they are not just inspected but intruded by the prison guards when they return from visits to judiciary or medical facilities.

Such practices are common and intrusive when prisoners are given family in-person visits or “religious visits.” This is the reason why some prisoners refrain from going to medical clinics or facilities or some family members reject having in-person family visits with their family member prisoners. If the government deems it necessary, it can form a special committee and talk to those who have witnessed such behavior and practices.

On the subject of a special committee, even though it does not appear that the president or his close aides will agree to form a special committee for the release of Mousavi and Karoubi, one can still hope that Mr. Rouhani will instruct his most senior aide, hojat ol-Islam Younesi to form “an independent fact finding commission” comprising of government officials and independent personalities from amongst reformers, transformationalists and rational conservatists to investigate this issue and how physical bodily checks and frisks take place in the country by speaking to current and former political-ideological prisoners, including Green Movement prisoners who despite all the dangers openly have announced how they had been physically beaten and physically and mentally tortured.