Hashmatollah Tabarzadi, Secretary General of the Democratic Front of Iran, Arrested

The website "Democratic Front" reported, citing an anonymous "informed source," that Hashmatollah Tabarzadi, the Secretary General of this group, was "arrested and transferred to Ward 209 of Evin Prison" on Tuesday, May 28. According to this website, Mr. Tabarzadi left his home at 10 AM on Tuesday to meet with Mohammad Maleki, a political activist, and has not returned home. Meanwhile, Ali Tabarzadi, Mr. Tabarzadi's son, also wrote on his Facebook page that his father was "most likely" arrested in the street. According to the report, in the last days of the previous year, the Evin Prosecutor's Office sent a summons to Mr. Tabarzadi's home, but he refused to accept it, and officials announced that he would be arrested if he did not appear at the prosecutor's office. Hashmatollah Tabarzadi had previously stated on his Facebook page that in the event of his arrest, he would go on a hunger strike "from the very first moment" and would not speak during interrogations and would not provide bail or guarantees for his release. Over the past twenty years, Hashmatollah Tabarzadi has been arrested multiple times, including after the protests over the results of the 2009 presidential election, which led to months of unrest in the country. According to the "Democratic Front" website, he was released after serving five and a half years in prison on June 30, 2015. Mr. Tabarzadi was considered one of the main supporters of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic in student organizations close to the government during the late 1980s and mid-1990s. However, he gradually became one of the opponents of the Islamic Republic, and his revelations about the financial and political corruption of influential figures in the Islamic Republic since the early 1990s ultimately led to the suspension of his publication, Payam Daneshjoo, which he managed, and his imprisonment.