Dubai: Iranian security forces have launched a campaign to arrest figures within the country’s reformist movement, reports said on Monday.
That widens a crackdown on dissent after authorities earlier put down nationwide protests in violence that killed thousands and saw tens of thousands more detained.
Detained Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi has received another prison sentence of over seven years. It signals a widening effort to silence anyone opposed to the bloody suppression of unrest by Iran’s theocracy as it faces new nuclear talks with the United States. President Donald Trump has repeatedly warned he could launch an attack on the country if no deal is reached.
Media reports quoted officials within the reformist movement, which seeks to change Iran’s theocracy from inside, as saying at least four of their members had been arrested. They include Azar Mansouri, the head of the Reformist Front, which represents multiple reformist factions, and former diplomat Mohsen Aminzadeh, who served under reformist President Mohammad Khatami.
Also detained was Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, who led students who stormed the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979, sparking the 444-day hostage crisis.
Their arrests likely stem from a reformist statement in January that called for Iran’s 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to resign from his position and have a transitional governing council oversee the country.
Meanwhile, Iran issued a warning to pilots that it planned “rocket launches” from Monday into Tuesday in an area over the country’s Semnan province, home to the Imam Khomeini Spaceport. Such launches have corresponded in the past with Iran marking the anniversary of its 1979 Islamic Revolution.
