TEHERAN, Iran - February 10, 2011 - Iran has put opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi under house arrest after he called for renewed street protests against the government, his son told The Guardian.
The move came after thousands of Iranians sympathetic to the opposition green movement joined social networking websites to promote demonstrations on Monday in solidarity with protesters in Egypt and Tunisia.
Hossein Karroubi said that he and his family had been banned from visiting Karroubi's house in Teheran, which has been surrounded by dozens of security officers. "When I went to visit my father this morning, officers prevented me from entering the house and said that apart from my mother, no one is allowed in," he said.
He added, "It is the first time that the government has restricted my father this far so that even us, as close family members are also banned from visiting him, this is obviously a move aimed at intimidating the leaders of the opposition for Monday's protest."
Intelligence service officers also arrested Taghi Rahmani, an adviser to Mehdi Karroubi, after raiding his house.
At the same time, opposition websites reported a series of arrests of political activists and journalists as the regime struggles to prevent the news of the planned protest from spreading.
The official website of Mir Hossein Mousavi, another opposition leader, reported that police had arrested Mohammad Hossein Sharifzadeghan, a professor of Shahid Beheshti University and a member of Mousavi's campaign during the 2009 presidential election.
