On August 11, 2019, at least 10 dissident individuals were arrested in Mashhad, a large city in Northeast Iran.
According to an NCRI Statement, Iranian security forces arrested Hashem Khastar, a teacher’s representative and 9 others who demanded the resignation and removal of Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the clerical regime. They had gathered in front of a tribunal in Mashhad to support another individual calling for Khamenei’s ouster when they were arrested.
On June 12, fourteen civil rights and political activists in Iran called for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to step down.
Hossein Sherafati Rad, the Khorasan Razavi General Director of Security, described the detainees as “overseas-related counter-revolutionary elements who had come to Mashhad from various parts of the country to foment protests, incite public opinion against the Islamic Republic and create insecurity.”
“The detainees are from related counter-revolutionary groups overseas, they were associated with subversive groups, and they intended to design, organize and create intermittent disturbances in the city,” the Fars news agency reported.
Meanwhile, Iranian state TV also said that “members of a network” linked to regime change supporters were arrested in Mashhad. Another signatory to the letter to Khamenei said that somebody broke into his home and attacked him with a knife, but police refused to come to his rescue.
Social media reports also said that another signatory to the letter to Khamenei, who is a teacher was arrested on Sunday had earlier received death threats over the phone.
Most recently, another group of 14 female activists based outside Iran expressed support for the call made by women activists inside Iran.
Iranian Judiciary officials have still not responded to these reports.
In a related development, 14 Iranian women’s rights activists penned an open letter just last week to Khamenei requesting that he resign from his position after his 20-year tenure. They wrote that the country needs to undergo political change.
The Iranian resistance calls on international human rights bodies to strongly condemn the mullahs’ regime and to take immediate action to release the detainees. The mullahs’ regime, besieged by domestic and international crises, is deeply afraid of any protests and sparks that could ignite popular uprisings and try to prevent it by suppression, arrest, and intimidation.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance has repeatedly called for the formation of an international delegation to visit political prisoners and Iran’s prisons and to take immediate action to release them.
