AFP: Iran has arrested a top reformist from a banned political party which backed opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi in last year’s presidential election, the ISNA news agency reported on Wednesday.
TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran has arrested a top reformist from a banned political party which backed opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi in last year’s presidential election, the ISNA news agency reported on Wednesday.
Ali Shakouri-rat, a leader of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, was “arrested yesterday (Tuesday) night for security reasons,” the news agency quoted Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi as saying.
Shakouri-rat is known for his outspoken criticism of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government.
In September, Iran banned two reformist parties — the Islamic Iran Participation Front and the Islamic Revolution Mujahedeen Organisation — after they backed Mousavi in the June 2009 presidential election.
The two parties were accused of undermining national security.
After the disputed election results which gave Ahmadinejad a second term, several high-ranking members of both parties were arrested and sentenced to long prison terms in a major government crackdown on reformists, political activists and journalists.
