Iran bans protest against 14-year house arrest of Green Movement leaders

Iranian security forces banned a planned rally on Thursday protesting the 14-year house arrest of Green Movement leaders.

The protest was called to demand an end to the incarceration of former presidential candidate and Green Movement leader, Mir-Hossein Mousavi and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard.

It was the first such public demonstration planned by their supporters since they were placed under home arrest in February 2011 for their role in leading the Green Movement protests which rocked the country after the disputed 2009 presidential election.

Former parliamentary speaker Mehdi Karroubi, another opposition figure, has also been under house arrest, though restrictions on him have eased in recent years.

Despite continued efforts by supporters to demand their freedom, Iran’s hardline leadership remains firm in keeping the Green Movement figureheads silenced.

The campaign for a “silent rally” for Mousavi was announced on Telegram on Tuesday by dissident activist Rahim Ghomeishi, a 60-year-old former IRGC member and Iran-Iraq War veteran who had spent four years as a prisoner of war in Iraq.

On Wednesday, security forces detained Ghomeishi along with activists Akbar Danesh-Sararoudi and Naser Daneshfar, both of whom supported the protest.

Their social media campaign received backing from over 500 former IRGC members, war veterans, and their families.

Crackdown, arrests, and intimidation

On Thursday, Ardshir Amir-Arjomand, a former Mousavi advisor and spokesman for the Iranian Green Movement’s Coordinating Council, claimed that security forces blocked several activists from leaving their homes to participate in the rally.

Ghomeishi had previously announced that he and other veterans planned to stage a peaceful, “silent” protest outside the main gate of Tehran University to oppose the continued house arrest of political figures and the imprisonment of activists.

He also insisted that the law allows citizens to protest peacefully whenever they wish, and authorities cannot deny this right to them under the pretext that the country is in “sensitive circumstances” or that the “enemy” may exploit their protests for its own propaganda purposes.

Ghomeishi also said the group had informed the Interior Ministry and “other official bodies” of the intention to hold a rally but had not heard back from them, assuming that there was no objection to the plan.

While Article 27 of Iran’s constitution technically allows peaceful assembly, authorities almost categorically deny permits for opposition protests, citing “sensitive circumstances” or the risk of “enemy propaganda” or ignore their permit requests. At the same time, pro-regime vigilante groups face no such restrictions.

Assembly permits are often denied to most political groups, effectively suppressing their protests. In contrast, hardliner vigilante groups are allowed to hold rallies freely, without authorization.

After Thursday's crackdown, Azar Mansouri, the head of the Reformist Front, protested in an X post.

He wrote: "Why do some people freely hold gatherings and meetings anywhere ... without permission, chant slogans against the president and his team, and have ironclad immunity, but another group, who happen to be veterans of the country, are arrested before holding a peaceful gathering?"

Information received from Iranians on the ground by Iran International TV on Thursday and eyewitness reports on social media, described a heavy security presence on Enghelab Avenue and around Tehran University hours before the planned demonstration. Videos showed police cars and vans lining the streets.

One witness told Iran International that around 1,000 uniformed officers—including both male and female forces—were stationed near the university, along with nearly as many plainclothes agents. Officers stopped and searched people, checking their phones for footage.

Iran International has learned that the government’s Information office instructed local media and journalists not to report on the crackdown.

In addition to the initial arrests, several university students and Saeed and Saeedeh Montazeri—children of the late dissident cleric Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri— and Hossein Loghmanian, a former lawmaker and also a war veteran, were detained when they attempted to join the rally.

The case has gained international attention. Back in 2017, the US State Department said of the pair's house arrest: "Their continued house arrest contradicts Iran’s international obligations including those under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a state party, to provide minimum fair trial guarantees and not to subject citizens to arbitrary arrest or detention.

"We join the international community in condemning the continued arbitrary detention of these three individuals without charges or fair trials and in calling for their immediate release."