Mehdi Karroubi

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Mehdi Karroubi is an Iranian Shia cleric and reformist politician who leads the National Trust Party. He was born on September 26, 1937, in Aligudarz, Lorestan, and studied theology in Qom and Tehran as well as law at Tehran University. He worked as a lawyer in the 1960s and was jailed by the Shah’s government in the 1970s. After the 1979 Revolution, he led the Imam Khomeini Relief Committee and later the Martyr’s Foundation from 1980 to 1992.

Karroubi has been a prominent political figure in Iran’s parliament. He served as Speaker of the Parliament twice, from 1989 to 1992 and again from 2000 to 2004. He was involved in other parliamentary roles and was part of the Expediency Discernment Council until 2005.

A reformist and critic of the Guardian Council, Karroubi helped form the Association of Combatant Clerics and later founded the National Trust Party (also known as Etemad-e-Melli). He ran for president in 2005, finishing third, and again in 2009 as a leading reformist candidate.

After the contested 2009 election, Karroubi and his wife Fatemeh became active in the Green Movement. In February 2011 he was placed under house arrest along with Mir-Hossein Mousavi, where he has remained. In 2017 he began a hunger strike to demand a public trial and the removal of security agents from his home; he was briefly hospitalized after heart surgery. His call for a fair trial has not yet been granted.

Karroubi has four children and has been married to Fatemeh Karroubi since 1962. He is widely viewed as a moderate reformist who supports greater political participation, rights for religious and ethnic minorities, and dialogue with the United States.