Mehdi Karroubi’s son, Hossein Karroubi, told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that the police were afraid to confront the plainclothes forces who repeatedly attacked his father’s home during the past several days. The attackers gathered outside Mehdi Karroubi’s residence, chanted obscenities and vandalized the entrance, setting a door on fire. “The police did not interfere at all. Only in the end, when the attackers were done and they were exhausted, the Special Police Force arrived and the attackers left. The only people defending the home were Karroubi’s guards,” said Hossein Karroubi regarding the attacks on his father’s home during the days leading to Quds Day. “This morning, Friday, a crowd of between 70 and 80 people came along with 20 motorcyclists. They broke a lot of things which had survived last night’s attack. They chanted slogans and insults. They left at about 3:00 p.m., saying, ‘We will be back tonight.’ We are waiting for them to return tonight…They intended to enter the house. They broke the windows with intimidating, fearsome sounds. They then threw teargas. And then they put several bullets into the house. When Mr. Karroubi’s head security guard went to talk to them, asking them not to shoot, they beat him so hard he passed out and he is in the hospital right now. I heard they were looking for him until 4, 5 a.m. to find out which hospital he was taken to so that they could go there and beat him some more. They broke the house door yesterday and set it on fire, enabling themselves to advance 3-4 meters inside the building. The guards fired shots then and three or four of them were injured,” Hossein Karroubi told the Campaign.
Read the Campaign’s press release: “Leader Accountable for Violence on Opposition Leaders.”
“Against whom should we file a complaint? These are people who came here and shouted profanities at Mr. Karroubi and his wife. They vandalized and destroyed the neighbors’ cars. They broke two windows on the neighbors’ homes. Nobody can confront these people. They are ruffians and the police is afraid to tackle them,” he said about the futility of filing a formal complaint about the repeated nightly attacks of the past several days. “Several police officers told the security guards that some of the attackers were suspects in local police station who had been arrested either on robbery charges or charges of possession of alcoholic beverages. Then they come here and pretend to be Hezbollahi’s doing this. One of my friends said that when he went to talk to one of them, he was so drunk my friend was going to get sick. They get drunk, too. They put on masks, too. And they chant ‘Hossein, Hossein.’ My father said what pains me the most is that they chant terrible profanities at me on one hand, and then they chant ‘Hossein, Hossein,’ and ‘Ali, Ali,’” said Hossein Karroubi about the identities of some of the attackers.