Movement Restrictions Imposed on Iran's Ex-President Ahmadinejad

Iran's security forces have imposed movement restrictions against former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sources confirmed to Iran International.

The limitations were imposed after Ahmadinejad's return from a trip to northern Iran, the sources said.

Ahmadinejad has turned into a critic of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's policies in recent years and assumed an anti-establishment image.

Leaders of Iran's Green Movement, Mir-Hossein Mousavi and his wife Zahra Rahnavard as well as Mehdi Karroubi, were similarly put under house arrest in 2011 for not accepting the results of the 2009 elections which brought Ahmadinejad to power and urging supporters to protest.

Iran's election watchdog, the Guardian Council, barred the populist former president from standing in the June 28 snap elections. He was also barred from running in 2017 and 2021 presidential elections.

In an interview with Khabar Fori news website on June 11, before the vetting results were announced, the controversial former president criticized Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s foreign policy and said he would even negotiate with ex-US president Donald Trump.

"For how much longer do we desire to remain in conflict with the US?" he asked in the same interview while also blaming “certain individuals” for ruining the “potential to resolve matters with the US” after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 by storming and occupying the US embassy in Tehran.

"Certain people" apparently referred to several of today’s high-profile reformists involved in the embassy takeover.

Ahmadinejad’s disqualification was almost certain from the beginning. Many believed he had “registered to be disqualified” to boost the anti-establishment image he has carved out for himself in the past few years.