F or several days now, the home of Mehdi Karroubi, presidential candidate in the 2009 rigged election in Iran, and leader of the opposition Green Movement, has been under siege by pro-government plain-clothed militia-men–the same folks we saw beating and shooting people in the streets of Iran’s cities last year during wide-spread protests against the rigged election.

Another opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi’s wife, Zahra Rahnavard, was attacked recently in an alley close to her home, and interrogated by other plain-clothed militia-men. She recently wrote an open letter to the Supreme Leader, Khamenei, asking him why he remains silent in the face of such atrocities.

The following video (sourced by Negar Irani) shows damage done to Karroubi’s apartment, and the chants and slogans of the pro-government forces can be heard. “Marg bar Karroubi” or “Death to Karroubi” can be heard in the chants.

This harassment is due to Karroubi’s constant and consistent stance against the coup government, and his support for the people of Iran’s wishes for a fair and representative, democratic government. Tomorrow, it is Qods Day or Jerusalem Day in Iran, a day normally reserved by the government for anti-Israel and anti-U.S. and pro-Palestine rallies. Since the rigged election, the Green Movement has been co-opting regime sponsored days and using them for ant-regime and pro-Iran protests. Clearly, the regime is afraid that tomorrow’s rallies may present another opportunity for the opposition to show itself.

Note: In an earlier version of this article, we mistakenly associated Zahra Rahnavard as Karroubi’s wife. She is Mir Hossein Mousavi’s wife. We apologize for the error.

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Dave Siavashi is a new media journalist, blogger, technologist, editor and founder of Iran News Now. A pioneer in live-blog reporting on the Mideast and breaking news, his work has been quoted in multiple news publications and he is regularly tweeted and retweeted by the journalists of the Twitterverse. He writes for Iran News Now and EA Wordview.

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