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Iran's two top opposition leaders in poor health, one in hospital

The two opposition leaders who disputed the results of Iran's 2009 presidential election, triggering mass protests, are in poor health and one has been hospitalised after a heart attack, news outlets cited family members saying.

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The two opposition leaders who disputed the results of Iran's 2009 presidential election, triggering mass protests, are in poor health and one has been hospitalised after a heart attack, news outlets cited family members saying.

Mirhossein Mousavi and fellow reformist Mehdi Karroubi became figureheads for Iranians who took to the streets after the vote they believed was rigged to bring back hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Dozens of protesters were killed and hundreds arrested in the crackdown that followed, according to human rights groups.

The pair have been under house arrest since 2011, along with Mousavi's wife Zahra Rahnavard, after they called for demonstrations in Iran in solidarity with the pro-democracy uprisings that swept the Middle East in that year.

Their continued detention is a highly divisive issue in Iran. One of President Hassan Rouhani's top campaign promises before he was re-elected in May was to work for their release, infuriating hardliners who view them as traitors.

The news that the pair are in poor health is likely to raise pressure on Rouhani from his supporters to push harder for their release. It could unleash more protests if they were to die under house arrest.

Mousavi, 75, is suffering from irregular blood pressure and dizziness and can not walk without assistance, the opposition Kaleme site reported on Wednesday, citing information provided by Mousavi's daughters.

Mousavi told his daughters not to make any public statement about his health, the site reported.

Karroubi, 79, was admitted to hospital on Monday after suffering a heart attack, his son Mohammad Hossein told the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) on Monday.

Iran's judiciary chief Sadeq Larijani addressed Rouhani's campaign promise in late May by saying: "Who are you to break the house arrests?", without directly naming him, according to the judiciary news site Mizan.

Larijani said the Supreme National Security Council, which includes the heads of the three branches of government as well as the head of the Revolutionary Guards and other ministers, must take any initial decision to end the house arrests and then the judiciary would step in.

Any attempt to resolve this issue outside this legal procedure would be seen as an attempt to stoke up unrest similar to 2009, he said at the time, according to Mizan.

 

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)

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