PARIS (AP) — Iran is stepping up arrests of activists and news hounds as a crackdown on civil society as anti-regime protests continue across the country, activists said Monday.
Eighteen bloodhounds have been jailed since protests erupted earlier this month over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by the country’s infamous morality police, according to the Washington-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Many activists and lawyers have also been detained, in addition to prominent freedom of expression activist Hossein Ronaghi, who was arrested over the weekend, foreign Persian-language media reported.
The arrests stem from significant web restrictions and blocking of sites such as Instagram and WhatsApp, which activists say are aimed at preventing major protest points from leaking to the outside world.
“By targeting bloodhounds in a climate of violence after restricting access to WhatsApp and Instagram, the Iranian government is sending a transparent message that there will not have to be a protest policy,” Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in a statement.
FREEMAN OPERIAL: Will they go to a crossroads?
Ronaghi, who is bitterly critical of Iran’s Islamic leadership and collaborated with The Washington Post, said in a video released over the weekend that he first escaped arrest by escaping from his apartment when agents arrived to pick him up from his home.
But security forces arrested him and his two lawyers on Saturday, London-based Iran International said, saying he had told his circle of relatives that he had been beaten in custody.
Activists also said that two university academics in their early twenties who also had careers as writers, Banafsheh Kamali and Maedeh Jamal, had been arrested.
Videos were posted on social media purporting to show the moment Jamal arrested with a female voice shouting “Help!Help!”
Among the 18 bloodhounds detained, according to CPJ, are photojournalist Yalda Moaiery, who gained popularity abroad for an iconic photo of protests in 2019, and journalist Nilufar Hamedi, who exposed Amini’s case on her way to the hospital where she was in a coma.
Meanwhile, the government also arrested five prominent members of the Baha’i minority in other cities across the country, said Diane Alai, the Baha’i International Community (BIC) representative to the UN in Geneva.
Baha’is, Iran’s largest non-Muslim devout minority so far identified in the Islamic Republic, had already experienced repression even before the protests began, with people arrested and homes destroyed.
Philstar. com is one of the most dynamic, intelligent, and non-easy communities of readers in cyberspace. With your meaningful ideas, shape the stories that can shape the country. Register now!