PARIS: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have arrested prominent lawyer Mostafa Nili, one of more than a dozen rounded up amid a crackdown on protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death, his sister said.
Guards intelligence agents detained Nili at Tehran’s Mehrabad international airport on Monday night before raiding his mother’s house and taking him into custody, Fatemeh Nili tweeted.
Another prominent lawyer, Saeid Dehghan, who is believed to be abroad, confirmed his arrest in a post on Twitter.
Nili was one of the “few hopes for citizens against a political system that is the enemy of lawyers” as well as against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who “consider themselves the law,” Dehghan said.
Security forces have waged a campaign of mass arrests that has netted artists, dissidents, journalists and lawyers since protests broke out over Amini’s death on September 16.
Amini, 22, died three days after falling into a coma when she was arrested by the notorious morality police in Tehran for allegedly flouting Iran’s strict dress code for women based on Islamic sharia law.
Security forces, including the Guards, have killed at least 186 people during the crackdown on the women-led protest movement, the Norway-based group Iran Human Rights says.
At least another 118 people have lost their lives in distinct protests since September 30 in Sistan-Baluchistan, a mainly Sunni Muslim province on Iran’s southeastern border with Pakistan.
Thousands of people have been arrested in the crackdown, including more than a dozen lawyers who had been working to defend those taken in before being detained themselves.
Iran Revolutionary Guards arrest top lawyer: Sister
https://arab.news/vzkrd
Iran Revolutionary Guards arrest top lawyer: Sister
- Guards intelligence agents detained Nili at Tehran's Mehrabad international airport on Monday night
- Security forces have waged a campaign of mass arrests that has netted artists, dissidents, journalists and lawyers since protests broke out
Hundreds mourn in Syria’s Homs after deadly mosque bombing
- Officials have said the preliminary investigations indicate explosive devices were planted inside the mosque but have not yet publicly identified a suspect
HOMS: Hundreds of mourners gathered Saturday despite rain and cold outside of a mosque in the Syrian city of Homs where a bombing the day before killed eight people and wounded 18.
The crowd gathered next to the Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib Mosque in the Wadi Al-Dhahab neighborhood, where the population is predominantly from the Alawite minority, before driving in convoys to bury the victims.
Officials have said the preliminary investigations indicate explosive devices were planted inside the mosque but have not yet publicly identified a suspect.
A little-known group calling itself Saraya Ansar Al-Sunna claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on its Telegram channel, in which it indicated that the attack intended to target members of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam whom hard-line Islamists consider to be apostates.
The same group had previously claimed a suicide attack in June in which a gunman opened fire and then detonated an explosive vest inside a Greek Orthodox church in Dweil’a, on the outskirts of Damascus, killing 25 people as worshippers prayed on a Sunday.
A neighbor of the mosque, who asked to be identified only by the honorific Abu Ahmad (“father of Ahmad“) out of security concerns, said he was at home when he heard the sound of a “very very strong explosion.”
He and other neighbors went to the mosque and saw terrified people running out of it, he said. They entered and began trying to help the wounded, amid blood and scattered body parts on the floor.
While the neighborhood is primarily Alawite, he said the mosque had always been open to members of all sects to pray.
“It’s the house of God,” he said. “The mosque’s door is open to everyone. No one ever asked questions. Whoever wants to enter can enter.”
Mourners were unable to enter the mosque to pray Saturday because the crime scene remained cordoned off, so they prayed outside.
Some then marched through the streets chanting “Ya Ali,” in reference to the Prophet Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law whom Shiite Muslims consider to be his rightful successor.
