Mortazavi’s appointment as Social Security Organization director revoked

The decree according to which former Tehran prosecutor general Saeed Mortazavi had been appointed as director of the Social Security Organization has been revoked, the head of Iran’s Administrative Court of Justice announced on Monday.

The complaints lodged by a number of MPs in the previous parliament (eighth Majlis) against Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare Minister Abdolreza Sheikholeslami, who had appointed Mortazavi to the post, were discussed on Monday and it was decided that the decree be revoked, Mohammad Ja’far Montazeri told the Persian service of ISNA.

The opening ceremony of the sitting parliament was held on May 27.

Mortazavi’s appointment to the post in mid-March drew strong criticism from a number of lawmakers who hold him partly responsible for the Kahrizak incident.

A parliamentary report issued on January 10, 2010, blamed Mortazavi for sending 147 inmates, charged with involvement in the political unrest that occurred after the presidential election of June 2009, to the substandard Kahrizak detention center on July 9, 2009.

According to the report, despite the fact that officials of Tehran’s Evin prison had announced that the facility had enough space for the detainees, Mortazavi insisted on sending the 147 detainees to the Kahrizak detention center. Three of the detainees died while in the prison.