Reports indicate that seven lawyers and civil activists were arrested in Iran on Saturday, August 14. The group of civil society activists and lawyers is said to have been detained because they intended to sue Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and members of the National Coronavirus Task Force for negligence in their duties, which has resulted in the deaths of thousands of Iranians.
According to reports, Arash Kaykhosravi, Mostafa Nili, Mehdi Mahmoudian, Mohammad Reza Faghihi, Mohammad Hadi Erfanian Kaseb, Maryam Afrafraz, and Leila Heidari, a group of lawyers and civil activists, were arrested by security forces in Tehran on Saturday and taken to an unknown location.
During the arrests, part of the citizens’ personal belongings, including their mobile phones, were confiscated by the security forces.
The exact reasons for the detentions, who was responsible for the detentions, and the whereabouts of the seven lawyers are not known, and there are speculations that the number of detainees is likely to have been higher.
Arash Kaykhosravi, Mostafa Nili, Mohammad Reza Faghihi, Mohammad Hadi Erfanian Kaseb, and Leila Heidari are lawyers, Mehdi Mahmoudian is a journalist and Maryam Afrafraz is a civil rights activist and a member of the Imam Ali community.
It should be noted that following the massive massacre of the people with the deliberately expanded coronavirus by the regime, the anger of the people against Khamenei is increased. People publicly curse Khamenei and blame him for the current situation. This situation has become the major subject of the people in the Persian language social media.
During faction disputes, it became clear that the government has deliberately blocked the import of vaccines. Khamenei has effectively left the Iranian people defenseless against the coronavirus on the pretext that foreign vaccines are subjects of enmity against Iran’s people. After that, some ridicule expression by the regime’s elements stamped this policy as they said that maybe the Western countries would implement microchips and GPSs with their vaccine in the people’s bodies.
And now it has become too late for the country to purchase these effective vaccines. As Dr. Seyed Ali Hosseini Esfidvajani, Complex Systems Specialist and Faculty Member of Physics of the Beheshti University, in an article published by the Salam-e-no on August 15, 2021, said:
“The problem with vaccination is that successful vaccines have been pre-purchased for months and it is unlikely that an effective vaccine will be available quickly in the country.
“Explain that a comparison of data from the UAE and the United Kingdom shows that the effectiveness of the Sinopharm vaccine may be only 50%, and if this number is correct, it means that if we vaccinate the whole country with Sinopharm, we will be like a country of 40 million unvaccinated, and the next wave of the coronavirus is on its way.
“Therefore, in addition to buying Chinese vaccines that are more available, it is necessary to think about buying effective vaccines such as AstraZeneca or BioNTech. The problem, however, is that these vaccines have been pre-purchased for the coming months, and the chances of the country’s 10 million need being met immediately are slim.”
And it becomes clear that the real purpose of Khamenei was to prevent the people’s protests, albeit for a while, by making the people busy with the coronavirus, death, and economic hardships raised by it.
This inhumane act has so far killed at least 360,000 people, according to the democratic opposition. A situation that should be of great concern to Khamenei because despite the regime’s calculations this will become its trap. The arrest of these seven lawyers and activists, if it is related to this increase in public anger against Khamenei, shows the extent of the government’s fear of the popular movement.
