Arrest of Three Lawyers and Several Civil Activists in Front of Parliament

Qasem Sholehsadi, Arash Kikhavsar, and Masoud Javadiyeh, three lawyers, along with several civil activists, were arrested on Saturday, August 27, during a protest against the Guardian Council's oversight in front of the Iranian Parliament in Tehran. Payam Darafshan, a lawyer, reported in an interview with Radio Farda that Mohammad Nourizad, a political activist who was also arrested with the two lawyers, stated in a phone call that agents had dropped him off in the desert areas of Qom. He also mentioned that the two lawyers were initially taken to the security police and then transferred to another unknown location. Darafshan noted that several civil activists were also arrested alongside the two lawyers. He emphasized that these individuals had not committed any act against the law that would warrant their arrest. Sholehsadi had announced in a video on Friday that he would be present at the Parliament on Saturday in protest against the Guardian Council's oversight, inspired by Mohammad Mossadegh. He stated that the country's situation is at its 'worst' in recent years and that 'collapse' in various political and cultural dimensions is 'near.' This former MP stressed that these 'catastrophes are the result of depriving the people of their sovereignty through the bad tradition of oversight.' Sholehsadi has been arrested several times before, including in 2002 after publishing an open letter to Ayatollah Khamenei. He was also arrested in 2011 and released after a year. Sholehsadi was disqualified from running in the presidential elections of 2013 and 2017. Arash Kikhavsar has also represented several political cases, including that of the family of Kavous Seyed-Emami. On the same Saturday, Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabai, lawyer for Mohammad Ali Taheri, reported that the 36th branch of the Tehran Court of Appeals upheld his client's five-year prison sentence. Alizadeh Tabatabai stated in an interview with the Tasnim news agency that his client has served two and a half years of his five-year sentence and can be released on parole. Mohammad Ali Taheri established an institute called 'Erfan Halghah' in 2001 and engaged in activities related to 'complementary Iranian medicine, transcendental healing, and Scientology.' The issuance of a death sentence for Taheri sparked significant reactions both domestically and internationally. Ultimately, this sentence was overturned, and Taheri was sentenced to five years in prison last March.