Report: Iranian Opposition Leaders Taken to a Secret Prison

According to two reports on Pars Daily News, an Iranian news website, both opposition leaders, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi have been transferred to a secret prison in Tehran.

The source of the first report filed is from another Iranian site, “Siasat Iran, Politics of Iran,” indicating that, based on reports from inside Iran, both Mousavi and Karoubi were transferred at 3 a.m. this Friday under heavy security to a secret prison located in the Parchin Military Zone under the control of the Defense Ministry.

Shortly afterward, another report was filed indicating that the prison referred to above is located in Shahid Hemat Industrial facilities (a subordinate of Iran’s Aerospace Industries Organization (AIO); which is responsible for Iran’s liquid-fuelled ballistic missile programs and sanctioned by the United States on September 26, 2007, under Executive Order 12938 for engaging in proliferation activities). There is a vast and secretive prison located there, which is also holding Ron Arad, who went missing October 16, 1986 while on a mission over southern Lebanon. There has been no news from him since then. However, in October 2003, three former Iranian diplomats and intelligence officials, currently residing in Europe, said that missing IAF navigator Ron Arad is alive and being held in a prison near Tehran. The report further claims that Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent, who disappeared in Iran while visiting Iran’s Kish Island in March of 2007, was also imprisoned there. The source of this report, who claims his parents were held at that prison on the charges of espionage for Israel, also has verified with his sources inside the prison that Mousavi and Karoubi were transferred there early this morning.

It has been more than a week that the Iranian security agents cordoned off the residence of Mousavi and Karoubi cutting them off completely from the outside world. They have not been heard of since, fueling speculations that they have been transferred to a secret location!

The opposition has called for nationwide demonstrations to object to the incarceration of the opposition leaders, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, to be held on the Iranian calendar, 10^th of Esfand, March 1^st at 5 p.m., Tehran time.