Claim by Judiciary Spokesperson: Taraneh Alidoosti is Not Banned from Flying

Asghar Jahangir, the spokesperson for the Judiciary of the Islamic Republic of Iran, denied claims regarding the flight ban on Taraneh Alidoosti, an actress supportive of protesters, asserting that "there is fundamentally no crime called flight ban." In a press conference on Tuesday, January 1, he claimed that the head of the Civil Registration Organization also stated that this prominent actress's national ID card has not encountered any restrictions. This claim comes at a time when Zahra Minoui, Ms. Alidoosti's lawyer, confirmed the flight ban and transaction prohibition for this well-known actress who opposes mandatory hijab. In an interview with Aftab News on Sunday, January 9, she stated that Taraneh Alidoosti "if she visits any notary office, this ban is evident in the system and can be verified." This lawyer, noting that she "recently became aware of the flight ban" for her client, said: "Ms. Alidoosti intended to travel domestically, and the travel agency announced that we cannot issue a ticket for your national ID code." According to Ms. Minoui, Taraneh Alidoosti's national ID code has been "selectively blocked for certain services such as flights and has been marked." The lawyer described such punishments and social restrictions as "lacking legal and judicial basis" and stated that "it is unclear which authority issued this restriction." According to this lawyer, Taraneh Alidoosti has also been "prohibited from transactions" since 2022. Taraneh Alidoosti, a global figure in Iranian cinema, was arrested after removing her mandatory hijab in protest against the death of Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the morality police and her participation in the nationwide protests of 2022. Months after this filmmaker's release from prison, Ms. Alidoosti's mother reported that she had developed a lesser-known illness, and her lawyer announced that doctors had diagnosed the cause of her illness as "drug interaction." So far, some political prisoners, including Hossein Ronaghi and Bahareh Hedayat, and several protesters arrested during the nationwide protests of 2022, such as Bahar (Zeynab) Khaniabpour, a resident of Behbahan, have reported developing "autoimmune diseases" after being released from the prisons of the Islamic Republic. Some activists and journalists have described personal accounts of the medicalization of political prisoners in the Islamic Republic's prisons as a "deliberate systematic process" by the government.