Too Many Arrests

Here is a good summary of all the arrests of childern and grandchildern that has recently occured by this regime:

Meanwhile the arrest of the children, grandchildren, relatives, and close aides of senior leaders of the Green Movement and the reformists has continued unabated. Mohammad Mehdi, Mohammad Sadegh, and Mohammad Ali Montazeri, children of Ahmad Montazeri, Grand Ayatollah Montazeri’s son, have been arrested. In addition, Hamed, Naser, and Hajar Montazeri, three other grandchildren of the Grand Ayatollah, have also been arrested. Moreover, Sara Elahinia, Hamed Montazeri’s wife; and Sara Azizi, Naser Montazeri’s wife, have also been arrested. The children of Mr. Nazemzadeh and Mr. Ahmadi, two close aids of the Grand Ayatollah, have also been arrested.

Several children of Ayatollah Sayyed Hossein Mousavi Tabrizi, head of the Association of the Teachers and Scholars of Qom’s Theological Schools, a leftist clerical group, have also been arrested. Ayatollah Mousavi Tabrizi has been an outspoken critic of the hardliners.

La’yaa Doust-Mohammadi and Mohammad Hossein Rabbani, two grandchildren of Ayatollah Mohammad Mehdi Rabbani Amlashi, one of the original figures in the 1979 Revolution and an aide to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, have also been arrested. [Ayatollah Rabbani passed away in July 1985].

The following have also been arrested: Mehdi Naeimipour, son of Mohammad Naeimipour, editor of the banned newspaper, Yaas-e No [New Jasmine]; Mehdi Shirzad, son of Dr. Ahmad Shirzad, a professor of physics; and Mehdi Mirdamadi, son of Dr. Mohsen Mirdamadi, secretary-general of Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF), Iran’s largest political party, and leading reformist group. The elder Naeimipour and Shirzad are both members of the central committee of the IIPF. Mehdi Mousavi Nejad, a brother-in-law of Mohammad Ali Abtahi, vice president during the Khatami administration and jailed since the election, has also been arrested.

The goal of the arrest of the relatives, children, and grandchildren of the jailed reformist leaders and outspoken ayatollahs is to pressure those who are in jail to “confess,” and to silence those who are not. In one case, a reformist leader was told that “we have found so much evidence against your son that his punishment is death.”