While hundreds of thousand of Iranians on Monday expressed their support of Mir-Hossein Mousavi by holding demonstrations in Tehran and other major cities in Iran to protest against election fraud committed by the government on June 12th, security forces continued their house-to-house searches arresting prominent critics and reformers.
This trend, which began on Friday night in Tehran, has till today led to arrests of tens of political and social activists, journalists and students.
In the last 24 hours, Jahanbakhsh Khanjani, the Ministry of Interior spokesperson during Mohammad Khatami’s administration and a member of the Kargozaran party was arrested, among others.
Abdolreza Tajik, journalist and editor of the political section of a number of reformist newspapers in recent years, and Mahsa Amrabadi, a journalist working for Etemad Melli (National Trust) newspaper were also arrested in their house. Another report indicates that agents tried to arrest journalist Massoud Bastani and his wife Mahsa Amrabadi, who were not at home when the security agents stormed their house.
A group of agents broke into Ali Mazrui’s house - the head of the Association of Iranian Journalists - and said they were carrying arrest warrants for his son Hanif Mazrui, journalist and web blog writer.
The house of Mohammad-Reza Jalaipour, university professor and leadership member of the Participation party too was invaded by security agents two days ago. Speaking to BBC television, Jalaipour confirmed the attack on his house and said after I requested identity cards from the agents, they beat me up and locked me up in a vehicle outside the house. Jalaipour said that the intruding agents removed computers, research index cards, and other personal belongings from his house. According to Jalaipour, the agents showed him a general warrant signed by Tehran Prosecutor Saeed Mortezavi which allowed agents to arrest anyone they intended and wanted to arrest his son, Hamidreza, who was not in the house at the time.
In addition, some religious-national activists too have been arrested since Saturday. The list includes Hadi Saber, Taghi Rahmani and journalist Reza Alijani. Subsequent reports suggest that the three were released later.
According to another report, agents stormed into the residence of Keyvan Samimi, the managing editor of banned “Name” newspaper and arrested him, and confiscated the computers, papers and documents from the offices of the publication, which they also broke into later.
Individuals close to Iran’s Freedom Movement told reporters that the Ministry of Intelligence had take steps to arrest known young activist members of the party in Tehran and other parts of Iran. Emad Bahavar, Ahmad Afjei, Ali Mehrdad, Saeed Zeraatkar, Ruhallah Shafii, Mohammad-Reza Ahmadinia and Mojtaba Khandan are among those said to have been arrested.
Other reports indicate that Shahin Noorbakhsh, Ashkan Mojalali, Ali Pourkheiri, Ali Noghtehpour, Emad Bahavar, Hamid Lotfi, Meysam Chehrevar, Mehdie Minooi, Mojtaba Shayeste, Farhad Nasrollahpour also have been arrested.
In the city of Mashhad, Mehdi Abai, Amir Eghtenayi and other political activists were arrested on Sunday evening.
On the same day while a gathering was in progress in the house of ayatollah Shirazi, the city’s security police broke into the cleric’s house and arrested a number of activists present. Among those arrested were Mehdi Abai a member of the Khorasan province’s Participation party and Amir Eghtenai the head of the Advar Tahkim student organization from Khorasan province.
Till the writing of this report there has been no news about the whereabouts of Mostafa Tajzadeh, the leadership member of Islamic Revolution Mojahedin Organization who had been arrested at 1:30 am on Saturday in his own house, and Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, the spokesperson during Khatami’s administration who was arrested along with Tajzadeh.
Another prominent writer whose whereabouts are still not know since his arrest two days ago is Ahmad Zeidabadi, who is also the secretary general of the Advar Tahkim student organization.
Arrest of Students
In addition prominent activists and political personalities, reports also abound about arrest of students in Tehran and other major cities across Iran. These arrests took place when plain-clothes agents of the Passdaran Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) stormed into university dormitories over the last 3 days, beating up students and hurling them away in vans stationed outside. In Tehran alone, agents who had stormed into Tehran University dormitory had taken some 200 students with them, to some undisclosed location.
Mansour Mousavi, Vahid Sarafi, Amir Afzali, Hamid Motevalizadeh Adabiat, Kazem Rahimi, Saman Kamkar, Morteza Razmkhah, Nima Rahimi, Mohammad-Reza Harabadi, Sina Cheghini, Hesam Kamangar, Siavosh Gholami, Khalil Karami, Moslem Salehi, Saman Saheb Jalal, Hamed Roshani, Mohammad-Reza Khodavari, Milad Cheghini are only the names of a few of those who were rounded by plain-clothes agents when they stormed the dormitory of Tehran University during the last two days.
A large number of more students in other cities such as Isfahan, Mashhad, Babol, Gilan and Shiraz were also arrested when special police units stormed universities and student dormitories.
