During the Iranian presidential elections, Mehdi Karroubi was the long-shot candidate. He was not as well known as his opponents, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir-Hossein Mousavi. His reformist credentials were strong, but with Mousavi in the race, reformists already had a leader. His speeches about stronger women’s rights and more individual liberty resonated with many Iranians, but he still lacked a strong base. Like many losing politicians, Mehdi Karroubi was destined to be just a side-note in the newspaper articles.
But the post-election turmoil has changed all that. The protests against Ahmadinejad’s election victory have been labeled as the “green movement” after Mousavi’s campaign color, but the leader, who has been instrumental in keeping the protest movement alive and highlighting the egregious treatment of protesters arrested, is not Mousavi, but Karroubi. Karroubi has emerged as the voice of Iranians protesting against the current government’s fraudulent election victory. He is the one who accused the government of torturing prisoners arrested in the post-election turmoil. He is the one who denounced the security forces for raping and sodomizing prisoners. And now he is the one who is in threat of being prosecuted for his vocal opposition.
The Tehran Bureau has an article detailing the life of this dauntless cleric, who is worth knowing.
Photo taken from the Tehran Bureau.
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