{"id":114643,"date":"2026-02-09T11:24:49","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T11:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=114643"},"modified":"2026-02-09T11:24:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T11:24:49","slug":"iran-arrests-prominent-reformist-politicians-cites-links-to-us-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=114643","title":{"rendered":"Iran arrests prominent reformist politicians, cites links to US, Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>5 Minute, 26 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>
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Iranian authorities have arrested four people on charges of attempting to \u201cdisrupt the country\u2019s political and social order\u201d and working \u201cfor the benefit\u201d of Israel and the United States during the antigovernment protests last month.<\/p>\n

The arrests were made late on Sunday and early on Monday, and included prominent reformist politicians who have recently spoken critically about the theocratic establishment, according to Iranian media reports.<\/p>\n

Those arrested were identified as Azar Mansouri, head of Iran\u2019s Reformists Front, Mohsen Aminzadeh, a former diplomat, and Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, a former parliamentarian.<\/p>\n

Hojjat Kermani, the lawyer representing the three arrested people, told the semiofficial ISNA news agency that Javad Emam, a spokesman of the Reformists Front, was also taken from his home by security forces.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s judiciary claimed that the group was behind \u201corganising and leading extensive activities aimed at disrupting the political and social situation\u201d at a time when the country faced \u201cmilitary threats\u201d from Israel and the US, according to the official Mizan news agency.<\/p>\n

The individuals had done their utmost \u201cto justify the actions of the terrorist foot soldiers on the streets\u201d, it said.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s Reformist Front confirmed the arrests in a statement on X.<\/p>\n

It said Mansouri was arrested from the \u201cdoor of her home under a judicial order\u201d by the intelligence forces of Iran\u2019s Islamic\u00a0Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).<\/p>\n

It added that the IRGC has also issued summons to other senior members, including its deputy chairman, Mohsen Armin, and secretary, Badralsadat Mofidi. Local media reported another reformist figure, Feizollah Arab Sorkhi, was also summoned.<\/p>\n

Deadly crackdown<\/h2>\n

The arrests come amid anger in Iran over the deaths of thousands of Iranians during the January unrest. The protests began in the capital, Tehran, over a worsening economic crisis, but quickly escalated into a nationwide antigovernment movement.<\/p>\n

Iranian authorities labelled the protesters as \u201cterrorists\u201d and blamed the \u201criots\u201d on foreign interference from Israel and the US.<\/p>\n

The government later said\u00a03,117 people were killed\u00a0during the unrest and rejected claims by the United Nations and international human rights organisations that state forces were behind the killings, most of which occurred on the nights of January 8 and 9.<\/p>\n

The US-based\u00a0Human Rights Activists News Agency\u00a0(HRANA) said it has verified 6,961 deaths and is investigating 11,730 other cases. The organisation reports that at least 51,591 people have been arrested during and after the nationwide protests.<\/p>\n

UN special rapporteur on Iran, Mai Sato, said more than 20,000 people may have been killed during the protests as information remains limited amid heavy internet filtering by the state.<\/p>\n

Reacting to the protest killings in a statement in late January, the Reformist Front had said it grieved \u201cthe great catastrophe\u201d alongside the Iranian people, and called for sweeping reforms and the formation of an independent fact-finding mission. It had also threatened to dissolve in case the \u201cdestructive methods of the past\u201d persist.<\/p>\n

Mir Hossein Mousavi, former leader of the Reformist Front, who has been under house arrest since the Green Movement of 2009, released his strongest statement to date last month, calling for a democratic transition away from the \u201cIslamic Republic\u201d and for holding a constitutional referendum.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many ways must people say that they do not want this system and do not believe your lies? Enough. The game is over,\u201d he wrote last month. At least four people, including a reformist figure and three activists, were arrested for helping draft and publish the statement.<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera\u2019s Tohid Asadi, reporting from Tehran, said the politicians arrested on Sunday and Monday face \u201cserious allegations\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said Aminzadeh was a former deputy foreign minister during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami, who governed from 1997 to 2005, and that Asgharzadeh is a former lawmaker who was a student leader \u201cinvolved in the takeover of the US embassy\u201d in 1979.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese figures have a background of political activism and imprisonment,\u201d Asadi said. \u201cSo this is not the first time that they are facing such allegations. And they are going through a trajectory that could pave the way for imprisonment for them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Analysts say the crackdown is a sign the Iranian government is trying to send a message to any other dissidents who challenge it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are the people who have been calling for more political liberalisation. Some of them have called for the end of the Islamic Republic,\u201d said Sina Azodi, the director of the Middle East Studies programme at George Washington University in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis tells me the Islamic Republic has decided to close any avenues for political dissent and, rather, to rule with an iron fist, through crackdowns and more fear-mongering among any political dissidents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talks with US<\/h2>\n

The Iranian clampdown has also ratcheted up tensions with Washington.<\/p>\n

When the protests first broke out, US President Donald Trump \u2013 who is seeking to curb Iran\u2019s nuclear and missile programmes \u2013 threatened Tehran with new attacks if it used force against the protesters. Trump, who had ordered the US military strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites last June, also deployed a naval \u201carmada\u201d to the Gulf region.<\/p>\n

The move prompted Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to warn of a \u201cregional war\u201d if Iran is attacked, as well as a push by regional powers to ease the tensions.<\/p>\n

The diplomacy resulted in Iran and the US holding indirect talks in Oman on Friday. President Masoud Pezeshkian described the discussions as \u201ca step forward\u201d in a social media post on Sunday and said his government favoured continued dialogue.<\/p>\n

Another round of negotiations is scheduled for next week.<\/p>\n

Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC, told Al Jazeera that she does not expect the latest arrests in Iran to affect the ongoing nuclear negotiations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not sure that these arrests are going to be a specific focus of the talks as they continue,\u201d she told Al Jazeera. However, she noted the arrests come amid the talks in Oman and a planned visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the US capital.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu will probably demand Iran halt all uranium enrichment, end its missile programme, and stop supporting regional allies, Bennis said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s essentially a call for Iranian surrender,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo there\u2019ll be a big question as to whether the US is going to go along with the Israeli position or maintain its own position, which historically has been slightly different than Israel\u2019s, particularly on the question of nuclear enrichment.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Iranian authorities have arrested four people on charges of attempting to \u201cdisrupt the country\u2019s political and social order\u201d and working \u201cfor the benefit\u201d of Israel and the United States during the antigovernment protests last month.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1910,2359,9025,10,9,2044],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","category-iran","category-politician","category-politics","category-popular","category-us"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=114643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=114643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=114643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=114643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}