Six Lawyers and Civil Activists Arrested in Iran
An informed source told Voice of America that on Saturday, four lawyers and two civil activists were arrested by security forces in Tehran and transferred to an unknown location.
An informed source, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told Voice of America that on Saturday, August 14, Arash Keykhosravi, Mostafa Nili, Mohammad Reza Faqihi, and Leila Heidari, four lawyers, as well as Mehdi Mahmodiyan and Maryam Afrafaraz, two civil activists, were arrested by police.
The informed source continued by stating that the reason for the arrest of these individuals was their attempt to file complaints against certain officials of the Islamic Republic following the spread of the coronavirus. The source added that authorities had pressured some of these lawyers and civil activists before their arrest to prevent any such action from taking place.
According to the informed source, some of these individuals were able to contact their families by phone after their arrest on Saturday, and it was reported that they were given preliminary promises of release.
On Sunday, August 15, Mostafa Daneshju, a lawyer in Iran, announced the release of Leila Heidari, one of the arrested lawyers, by posting a message on Twitter stating: “We are still waiting for news of the release of the others.”
Said Dehqan, another lawyer, also posted on Twitter on Saturday, noting that these lawyers and civil activists intended to file complaints against responsible officials following the escalation of the coronavirus in Iran, writing: “Arrest before filing a single complaint is a sign of increasing fear of prosecution.”
Before the arrest, Mehdi Mahmodiyan, a civil activist, had written on Twitter criticizing the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, who had said that “coronavirus is not such a great disaster,” stating: “The daily massacre of more than 500 people and the waste of thousands of billions of tomans of people’s money are the result of their wise deliberation and their trust in Russia and China and their sycophants around them and insistence on domestic vaccine production.”
On Sunday, August 15, the death toll from the coronavirus was reported to exceed 600 people.
Source: Voice of America
