Reformist activist Azar Mansouri is among those seized by Iran’s regime in recent days, following the killing of thousands during nationwide protests

Iran Protests — Nasrin Sotoudeh on Regime’s Deadly Repression

Following up its deadly repression of nationwide protests, Iran’s regime is arresting and sentencing prominent activists including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi.

Mohammadi was given a new 7 1/2-year sentence after she was returned to prison in December.

The additional sentence included 6 years for “gathering and collusion’ and 1 1/2 years for propaganda. Mohammadi also was handed another 2-year travel ban and an added two years of internal exile to the city of Khosf, around 740 km (460 miles) southeast of Tehran.

She was briefly allowed to speak to her lawyer, Mostafa Nili, on Sunday for the first time. She had been transferred to hospital but had been imprisoned before her treatment was complete.

Mohammadi has been serving 13 years and nine months, reduced from 38 years on appeal, on charges of collusion against state security and propaganda against Iran’s regime.

Reformists Detained

The head of the Reformists Front, central to the election of President Masoud Pezeshkian in 2024, has also been seized by the Revolutionary Guards.

Azar Mansouri, who is also the Secretary General of the Islamic Iran People party, had expressed deep sorrow at protesters’ deaths. She said nothing could justify such a catastrophe.

Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, the head of the Front’s political committee, and Mohsen Aminzadeh, a Deputy Foreign Minister in the administration of President Mohammad Khatami, were arrested.

At least two other prominent figures in the Front, an umbrella group of up to 27 reformist factions, have been told to appear at the prosecutor’s office in Tehran’s Evin Prison on Tuesday.

Further arrests on Monday included Hossein Karroubi, the son of former Parliament Speaker and 2009 Presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi.

Mehdi Karroubi, who spent 14 years under house arrest until last March, said Iran’s problems are the direct result of the Supreme Leader’s destructive domestic and international politics. The Revolutionary Guards alleged Hossein Karroubi was the “inciter, compiler, and publisher of this destabilizing statement”.

“The Human Duty of Us All”

Mansouri said last week:

We will not allow the blood of these dear ones to be consigned to oblivion or the truth to be lost in the dust. Pursuing your rights and striving to clarify the truth is the human duty of us all. And with all our being, we declare our disgust and anger toward those who, ruthlessly and recklessly, dragged the youth of this land into earth and blood.

No power, no justification and no time can sanitize this great catastrophe.

Calling for Mansouri’s release, the National Unity Party condemned “security confrontations with well-known peaceful and non-violent forces that had pursued their activities within the framework of the law, especially at a time when the country faces external threats and serious internal challenges”.

Four other Iranian human-rights defenders were detained after signing a statement, backed by 17 prominent activists, demanding a “free, transparent referendum” for new, democratic government in Iran.

Those seized were Vida Rabbani, Abdollah Momeni and Mehdi Mahmoudian, and Dr Ghorban Behzadian-Nejad, a senior adviser to former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi.

Mousavi, who likely gained the most votes in the 2009 Presidential election before the regime’s intervention, has been under house arrest since February 2011.

The statement from the 17 summarized, “The mass killing of justice seekers who courageously protested this illegitimate system was an organised state crime against humanity.”