In a sweeping crackdown on Iran’s internal political opposition, security forces have arrested at least seven prominent reformist politicians and summoned seven others to court, according to Iran’s judiciary, state media reports and the reformist political party.
The arrests followed public statements by the reformist group and some of its members sharply condemning the government’s deadly violence toward protesters during a nationwide uprising in early January. The Reformist Front is a coalition that seeks to change but not overthrow the Islamic clerical system, and is a close ally of Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian.
The group was drawing up a statement calling for Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to step down and relinquish power to the president and prepare Iran for a transition period, according to three members of the party and a leaked audio from a meeting of senior members of the group circulating on social media.
In the audio, Dr. Ali Shakourirad, a physician and former lawmaker arrested on Monday, said Iranians had tried in every way to change the system to no avail and that a large portion of the society, including young people and even the generation that participated in the 1979 revolution, now considered it a failure.
Dr. Shakourirad said that the only option left was to convince “the supreme leader to relinquish his powers” to Mr. Pezeshkian so he can have the authority to resolve domestic and foreign issues.
Azar Mansouri, the head of the Reformist Front and the first woman to head a major political party, was arrested on Sunday. A few days before her arrest she sent a text message to Ali Akbar Mousavi Khoeini, a former lawmaker and member of the reformist faction now living in exile in the United States.
“We are working hard to form the National Savior Party of Iran,” Ms. Mansouri said in the text message, which was seen by The New York Times.
In an interview, Mr. Mousavi Khoeini said, “The reformist faction was merely reflecting the demand of millions of Iranians who want to transition away from the current system of absolute power belonging to a supreme leader.”
“The arrests of the party’s leaders will not stop the decision to move forward toward a democracy,” he added.
Mohsen Aminzadeh, a former deputy foreign minister, and Ebrahim Ashgarzadeh, who was among the leaders of a group of Iranian students but has since become a vocal critic of the regime, were also arrested on Sunday.
Mr. Asgharzadeh was participating in a live virtual panel when security forces raided his home. He abruptly ended his talk saying, “I have to stop the connection now because security forces have arrived. I will reconnect if the problem is resolved.”
On Monday more arrests of senior members of the party took place: Javad Emam, spokesman for the reformist faction; Hossein Karoubi, the son of cleric and dissident reformist party leader Mehdi Karroub; Dr. Shakourirad; and Ghorban Behzadian Nejad, the campaign chief of Mir Hossein Mousavi, an opposition figure and former presidential candidate who has been under house arrest for fifteen years.
Iran’s head of the judiciary, Gholam Hossein Ejei, said on Monday that he had instructed prosecutors to “pre-emptively” deal with individuals deemed a threat to national security. While he did not name the reformist politicians, he appeared to allude to them by saying some of the people arrested, “are saying exactly what the United States and the Israeli regime are saying.” The judiciary issued summons for five other prominent figures to report to court on Tuesday, according to two members of the party.
Targeting the top echelon of the reformist faction also presents a new challenge for Mr. Pezeshkian, who campaigned as a candidate closely affiliated with the party. The endorsement of the party played an instrumental role in convincing many Iranians to vote for Mr. Pezeshkian. Mr. Pezeshkian has not yet commented on the arrests.
Ali Vaez, a senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, said the arrests were a message not just to Iranians but to the outside world, as negotiations restart between the United States and Iran while Mr. Trump’s “armada” of warships waits in Persian Gulf waters.
“This is clearly a regime that has now demonstrated that it is willing to fight for its survival at any cost,” Mr. Vaez said. “At home, they’re signaling that there’s no room for any kind of dissent, whether it’s within the public or within the political elite. And they’re sending this message abroad that they’re still very much in control.”
The arrests come weeks after security forces used deadly force to crush nationwide protests, killing thousands, and amid a string of draconian measures to prevent any further unrest. They include mass arrests that rights groups say have swept up more than 40,000 people.
Iran’s reformist political faction is a legal and organized political party that has been a force in Iranian politics for three decades. President Mohammad Khatamai, the father and founder of the party, served two consecutive four-year terms as president from 1997 to 2005, and other prominent figures have served as parliament members, ministers and political advisers. The current first Vice President of Iran, Mohammad Reza Aref, hails from the reformist camp.
But the party has also been targeted by its rival hard-liners who sought to sideline it and consolidate power, most notably in 2009 when a contested presidential election sparked nationwide protests and arrests of reformist politicians.
Members of the movement had begun in recent weeks to more forcefully criticize the government crackdown and the death toll, which the government puts at 3,117. Rights groups say that vastly underestimates the number killed, with the rights group HRANA estimating more than 6,900 dead.
Iranian officials often describe those who they are arresting as “rioters” or “terrorists” supported by Israeli and U.S. efforts to sow unrest in the country.
The semiofficial news outlet Fars said the charges they face include coordinating with enemy propaganda, stoking political divisions, and secretly plotting to overthrow the system.
Iran’s judiciary did not publicly identify the reformists detained, but said authorities had arrested four who were “actively working in favor of the Zionist regime and the United States,” according to a statement published by its media outlet Mizan on Monday.
The large death toll from the recent protest wave had deepened longstanding tensions between Iran’s reformist leaders and their base, which has grown increasingly disillusioned with the Islamic Republic and sought a tougher stance toward the country’s rulers.
On Jan. 26, Ms. Mansouri, head of the Reformist Front, released a statement addressing protesters and their families.
“We will not allow the blood of these loved ones to be forgotten or the truth to be lost in obscurity,” it said. “No power, no justification, and no passage of time can cleanse this great tragedy.”
By pursuing such a forceful crackdown, the long-term risk for Iranian authorities is that they may push reformists to eventually take a stronger oppositional stance, said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, a London-based think tank.
“This is a signal things are going to get worse before they get better,” she said. “This is not going to be a snap back to life as normal.”
Sanam Mahoozi contributed reporting
Farnaz Fassihi is the United Nations bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of the organization. She also covers Iran and has written about conflict in the Middle East for 15 years.
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