German top human rights official urges Iran to release detained opposition leaders

By: The Associated Press
Posted: 07/14/2011 3:38 AM
BERLIN - Germany's top human rights official is urging Iran to release the country's detained opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi.
Human rights commissioner Markus Loening said Thursday the pair "held without any legal basis at an unknown location with no contact to the outside world" must be freed, "along with all other political prisoners."
Loening's statement comes exactly five months after the opposition leaders vanished after calling for rallies in solidarity with the Egyptian uprising. Their supporters say they are being detained along with their wives, a charge the government denies.
They ran against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009 and lost in an election widely seen as fraudulent and followed by a ruthless crackdown on protest rallies.