At least three lawyers have reportedly been arrested ahead of mass open trials for 1,000 protesters arrested by the regime.
Reports indicate that lawyers Nazanin Salari, Mahmud Taravat-Ruy and Bahar Sahraiyan were arrested in Iran on Tuesday, 1st November, with some media reports stating that a fourth lawyer, Amin Adel Ahmadian, has also been detained.
A lawyer named as Masoud Ahmadian reportedly announced the arrest of Nazanin Salari, who is a lawyer and the head of the Human Rights Commission of the Fars Bar Association. Salari was reportedly arrested at her place of work on Tuesday morning.
Mahmud Taravat-Ruy, a lawyer and human rights activist was then reportedly arrested after going to the prosecutor’s office to find out why Salari had been arrested.
Mustafa Nili, a well-known human rights lawyer in Iran, then announced later on Tuesday that lawyer Bahar Sahraiyan had also been arrested. Nili reportedly stated that all three lawyers were arrested in the south-central Iranian city of Shiraz, in Fars province.
The arrests come as the Iranian regime prepares to put about 1,000 people in mass open trials after arresting them during protests that have gripped the country since the death of Masa Amini.
The mass arrests of Iranian lawyers and protesters also come after one mum gave an emotional appeal for her son’s life after the authorities in Iran arrested him and sentenced him to death without a lawyer present.
Her appeal came after the chief prosecutor in Tehran announced that about 1,000 people had been charged in connection with the protests that have engulfed the country.
One of the people who has been arrested is Mohammad Ghobadlu, 22. He was reportedly arrested and held in Parand, in Tehran Province.
In the footage, his mum, who has not been named, says: “They interrogated him without an attorney present… and in that first session of the court, sentenced him to death.
“Is this Islamic Justice? In what court do they decide death in the first session?
“They want to carry out the sentence quickly.
“Please… Please help and support us.”
Prosecutors claim that Mohammad “killed an officer named Vahid Karampour Hasanvand and injured him” by running him over with a car.
But Mohammad’s lawyer Amir Raisian, who took to Twitter to confirm that the young man had been sentenced without a lawyer present, added that footage from a speech at the officer’s funeral contradicts the prosecution’s version of the events.
The judiciary, while calling for Mohammad’s trial to be public, also did not allow his family members to be present, or any lawyers, according to independent Iranian media. Mohammad was tried along with six others in a trial overseen by Judge Salvati in the General and Revolution Court of Tehran.
Iranian forces have been cracking down on waves of civil disorder following the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, from Saqqez, Kurdistan Province, who was on a visit to Tehran when she was arrested by morality police, accused of violating hijab rules on 13th September.
She was allegedly beaten while in custody and spent the following days in a coma in the hospital before succumbing in the ICU on 16th September.
The clinic where she was treated said in a now-deleted social media post that she had been admitted brain-dead.
Alleged medical scans of her skull leaked by hackers showed that she had suffered bone fractures, haemorrhages, and brain oedema.
Independent Iranian media have claimed that Mahsa’s medical records showing her history of heart disease were faked by the Iranian government.
Numbers differ regarding how many people have been killed since the protests began.
Dissident Iranian activists have said that over 400 people have died as a result of security forces cracking down on the protests gripping the country, while the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), a news site run by a collective of Iranian human rights advocates, said that by late October, at least 244 protesters, including 32 children, had been killed.
They added that over 12,500 people have so far been arrested.
