An influential committee in Iran’s hard-line parliament submitted a concluded investigation and formal lawsuit to the judiciary demanding former President Hassan Rouhani be placed on trial. The parliamentarians advancing the criticism argued their probe had established Rouhani’s misconduct and failure to honor his presidential duties throughout his two consecutive phrases (2013-2021).
Deputy parliament speaker Abdolreza Mesri, who presided over the Oct. 12 session, declared the lawmakers would respect any determination by the judiciary, “which is an impartial entity.” Iran’s judiciary has historically been a conservative entity whose chief is instantly appointed by Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The submit is at the moment held by hard-line cleric Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei.
Enclosed with the lawmakers’ formal criticism was an online petition signed by over half one million “college college students, younger clerics and folks from totally different walks of life.” The doc urges the “revolutionary parliament” to pursue the matter till a “agency judicial verdict” is issued in opposition to the previous president for “devaluing Iran’s nationwide forex,” “destroying jobs,” and “appointing spies and twin nationals” to delicate positions. Iran’s hard-liners have repeatedly claimed the “enemy’s intelligence providers” infiltrated the Rouhani authorities’s negotiating workforce, who signed the “humiliating” 2015 nuclear take care of the world powers.
Itemizing 18 counts, the petition accuses Rouhani of “deception of the general public about sanctions removing” in addition to “destroying Iran’s nuclear know-how.” It additional ranges “treason” allegations, punishable by the dying penalty below Iran’s strict judicial legal guidelines.
The signees have additionally implicated Rouhani within the “deaths of over 200 Iranians” within the November 2019 unrest triggered by fuel price hikes. Based on the petition, the elevated gasoline value was a Rouhani “sedition.” Iran’s supreme leader publicly threw his full weight behind the controversial plan and linked the unrest to “overseas enemies” as forces loyal to him carried out the Islamic Republic’s deadliest crackdown ever on public protests. Rouhani’s function in crushing the unrest has already been highlighted by his predecessor, hard-line Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who insists the reasonable cleric stand trial for “paving the bottom for shedding the blood of Iranians.”
Rouhani bid farewell to his submit on Aug. 2, handing it over to Ebrahim Raisi who gained a landslide victory — albeit in a controversial election marked by the bottom turnout seen in Iran’s current historical past. Ever since, Rouhani has been unusually absent from public view, making his future political profession anybody’s guess.
It was not instantly clear if the parliamentarians’ lawsuit was extra symbolic in nature and the way far the Khamenei-controlled judiciary will go after Rouhani. In post-revolution Iran, no former president has been seen within the dock. But below Khamenei’s leadership, and no matter their political leanings, they’ve shared the identical future: Successfully marginalized, they’ve fallen from the supreme chief’s grace one after one other.
