IRGC Intelligence Detains Two Student Activists

News sources in Iran have reported that several student activists have been arrested by the Intelligence Unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and there is currently no information about their fate. The Iranian Labor News Agency, ILNA, has reported that Zahra Khandan, a journalist and student activist from Amir Kabir University, was arrested at her home by 'a military entity' on Monday, January 29. Some human rights websites have stated that this military entity was the IRGC, which acted through its intelligence unit to detain Ms. Khandan. ILNA reports that there is no information about her fate. According to this report, this student activist, who has previously worked with ILNA, was temporarily expelled from her studies during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency due to her student activism. She also stated in a letter to the Ministry of Science on November 19, 2013, that security officers at Amir Kabir University prevented her from entering the university and assaulted her. The Kalameh website, close to Mir Hossein Mousavi, published Ms. Khandan's letter, stating that the reason for her and several other students' prohibition from entering Amir Kabir University was their participation in a celebration for Majid Tavakoli, a jailed student from the same university. Concurrently with the news of Ms. Khandan's arrest, several news websites also reported the arrest of Soha Mortazavi, another student activist from Amir Kabir University, on Monday. According to these reports, Soha Mortazavi had previously been suspended from her studies for one semester. The arrest of these two student activists comes at a time when Mahdieh Golroo, a student activist and member of the Women’s Citizenship Association, has been in detention for about three months. She was arrested on November 4 following a gathering of women activists in front of the Islamic Consultative Assembly in protest against acid attacks in Isfahan. The continued detention of Ms. Golroo is concerning, especially since more than three months have passed since the series of acid attacks in Isfahan, and no perpetrators have been apprehended. Amnesty International expressed concern on January 29 that the detention of Mahdieh Golroo may be an attempt to undermine peaceful gatherings and silence the voices of women speaking out about women's rights. On the same day, Shirin Ebadi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, wrote a letter to Ahmed Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, urging him to use all legal means to 'remove harassment' from Narges Mohammadi, the vice president of the Human Rights Defenders Center. According to the Human Rights Defenders Center website, last week, after Ms. Mohammadi visited the second branch of the Revolutionary Court, her 'final defense' was taken, and her case was sent to the Revolutionary Court for scheduling. Ms. Ebadi stated that Narges Mohammadi was also interrogated for hours after presenting the annual Human Rights Defenders Center award to Mawlawi Abdulhamid, the Sunni Friday prayer leader of Zahedan. Narges Mohammadi, as the vice president and spokesperson of the Human Rights Defenders Center, awarded this year's prize to Mawlawi Abdulhamid Ismailzahi, the Sunni Friday prayer leader of Zahedan. In previous years, she has been summoned and interrogated multiple times. In 2011, she was initially sentenced to 11 years in prison on charges of 'gathering and colluding against national security,' 'propaganda against the regime,' and 'membership in the Human Rights Defenders Center,' but this sentence was reduced to six years in December of that year. In 2012, she was transferred to Evin Prison and then to Zanjan Prison to serve her sentence, but due to illness, she was released on bail of 600 million tomans in August 2012.