Iranian security forces have arrested one of the country’s leading civil society activists and a journalist who played a key role in exposing the death of a young woman in custody, according to those around them.
These arrests coincide with an amplification of protests in Iran following the announcement on September 16 of the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, who fell into a coma after being arrested in Tehran on September 13 for “wearing inappropriate clothingand detained by the morality police. The repression of these demonstrations left 36 dead, according to NGOs.
Multiple arrests
Majid Tavakoli, an activist arrested several times in recent years, notably after the disputed presidential election of 2009, was arrested overnight from Thursday to Friday, his brother Mohsen said on Twitter. Another activist based in Iran, Hossein Ronaghi, managed to escape the police who came to arrest him at his home while he was giving an interview to the Iran International channel, based in London, according to the latter.
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In addition, Nilufar Hamedi, a journalist from Tehran who went to the hospital where Mahsa Amini was in a coma and helped alert world opinion to her fate, has been arrested, the daily announced on Telegram. Shargh, for which she works. Photojournalist Yalda Moaiery was arrested this week while covering protests in Tehran, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Thursday, calling for the release of all journalists arrested for their coverage. affair.
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