\n<\/p>\n
The head of Iran\u2019s Reformists Front, the organisation that was instrumental in securing the election of the country\u2019s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has been arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in a move that will probably deepen the tensions over the handling of the recent street protests.<\/p>\n
Azar Mansouri, the secretary general of the Islamic Iran People party, had expressed deep sorrow at protesters\u2019 deaths, and said nothing could justify such a catastrophe. She had not in public called for the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to resign.<\/p>\n
In what looked like a decisive roundup of the key reformist figures outside government, Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, the head of the front\u2019s political committee, and Mohsen Aminzadeh, a deputy foreign minister under the former president Mohammad Khatami, were also arrested.<\/p>\n
At least two other prominent figures in the Reformists Front, an umbrella group of as many as 27 reformist factions, have been ordered to appear at police stations this week. The moves seem designed to prevent the spread of criticism of the way the security services handled the protests.<\/p>\n
The official government death toll is 3,000, but others put the figure substantially higher.<\/p>\n
The prosecutors\u2019 office in Tehran claimed those arrested had made every effort to \u201cjustify the actions of the terrorists\u2019 infantry\u201d, and stated they were acting in league with the US and Israel. They were also accused of \u201ctargeting national unity, taking a stance against the constitution, promoting surrender, perverting political groups and creating secret subversive mechanisms\u201d.<\/p>\n
Justifying the unprecedented crackdown, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, the head of the judiciary, said: \u201cThose who issue statements against the Islamic Republic from within are in agreement with the Zionist regime and America.\u201d He described the people who issued the statement as \u201cwretched and miserable\u201d and threatened they would \u201csuffer losses\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a statement last week, Mansouri said: \u201cWe 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo power, no justification and no time can sanitise this great catastrophe,\u201d she added. Mansouri has not supported foreign interventions.<\/p>\n
Her seizure follows the arrest of four other Iranian human-rights defenders who had signed a statement backed by 17 prominent activists demanding a \u201cfree, transparent referendum\u201d to establish a new, democratic government in Iran. Three signatories were initially arrested \u2013 Vida Rabbani, Abdollah Momeni and Mehdi Mahmoudian<\/a> \u2013 but it appeared a fourth signatory, Dr Ghorban Behzadian-Nejad, a senior adviser to Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the reformist prime minister, was also arrested.<\/p>\n The statement from the 17 read: \u201cThe mass killing of justice seekers who courageously protested this illegitimate system was an organised state crime against humanity.\u201d It condemned the firing on civilians, the attacks on the wounded and the denial of medical care as \u201cacts against Iran\u2019s security and betrayal of the homeland\u201d.<\/p>\n Separately, Narges Mohammadi, the Nobel peaceprize winner<\/a> arrested 59 days ago, was given a new seven-year jail sentence<\/a>.<\/p>\n She was briefly allowed to speak to her lawyer Mostafa Nili for the first time on Sunday. She revealed she had been transferred to hospital but had been then sent back to jail before her treatment was complete.<\/p>\n Pezeshkian has set up an inquiry into the protests, but it is unlikely to be critical of the IRGC, and the arrests of his former supporters show how little influence he wields over the key decision-makers in the government, a point that will be underlined if he remains silent about the arrest of his backers.<\/p>\n On a turnout of 49.7%, Pezeshkian won the presidency in June 2024 with 16.4m votes, decisively defeating his rival, Saeed Jalili, with 13.5m votes, yet Pezeshkian has struggled to use his mandate.<\/p>\n The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has brought forward a trip to Washington to lobby President Trump to include Iran\u2019s missile programme in the talks under way between the US and Iran.<\/p>\n