US urges Iran to release three leaders

This statement has come on the seventh anniversary of the ban on the 2009 presidential candidates Mehdi Carrubi and Mir Hosseen Musavi's wife and women's rights defender Zahra Rahnavard.

Carrubi, former prime speaker, has helped lead mass protests against election manipulation in 2009, as official election results showed he had lost the opportunity to become president.

US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert has said the “arrest of these three individuals is contrary to Iran's” international obligations.

“We join the international community to oppose the arbitrary ban of these three individuals, without fair charges or judgments, and request their immediate release, as well as the release of all prisoners who were unjustly arrested in Iran”, she has said.

Carrubi has criticised Iran's supreme leader, Ayatallah Ali Khamenei, for his statements, that he blames <x0-> foreign enemies for the wave of street protests.

He has said that Khamenei must accept “responsibility” for his “politics in the last three decades”.

Carrubi, a Shiite clergyman like Khamenei, has said that the protests that have started in Iran due to economic conditions have been inevitable as a result of deepening “injustice, corruption and discrimination” in this state.

At least 25 people have been killed and 3,000 others have been detained in protests suppressed by authorities, which had started in more than 70 cities and other areas.

US President Donald Trump has backed Iranian protesters until Nauert on February 15th has said the United States wants Iran, “to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms” for all Iranians.