TEHRAN —
Iran has arrested the lawyer of two
female journalists detained after reporting the death of a woman in custody,
which sparked three months of protests, a newspaper said Saturday.
اضافة اعلان
The Islamic republic has been rocked by protests
since Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old
Iranian of Kurdish origin, died on September
16 after her arrest for an alleged breach of the country’s dress code for
women.
“Mohammad Ali Kamfirouzi, the lawyer for several
activists and journalists, has been detained,” the Ham Mihan newspaper said.
The arrest brings to 25 the number of lawyers
detained in connection with the protests, the reformist daily said.
Kamfirouzi’s lawyer Mohammad Ali Bagherpour was
cited as saying his client had not received a summons, was unaware of the
charges he faced and that he had been detained without any legal formalities.
Ham Mihan quoted Kamfirouzi’s brother as saying that
the lawyer had been arrested on Wednesday. He said he held the judiciary was
“responsible for protecting my brother’s life and health”.
Among Kamfirouzi’s clients were Niloufar Hamedi and
Elaheh Mohammadi, the two female journalists arrested after covering Amini’s
death and its aftermath.
Hamedi, who works at the reformist newspaper Shargh,
was detained on September 20 after visiting the hospital where Amini had spent
three days in a coma before her death.
Mohammadi, a journalist at
Ham Mihan, was taken into
custody on September 29 after she travelled to Amini’s hometown of Saqez in
Kurdistan province to report on her funeral.
The pair were charged on November 8 with propaganda
against the state and conspiring against national security — capital crimes
under the sharia law in force in Iran.
On Tuesday, the Shargh newspaper published a list of
nearly 40 journalists and photojournalists arrested in Iran in connection with
the protests.
Paris-based media watchdog
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has expressed concern about their fate and demanded their immediate
release.
Iran said on December 3 that more than 200 people
have been killed in the protests — which it describes as “riots” — including
dozens of security personnel.
Norway-based group Iran Human Rights said Iran’s
security forces had killed at least 469 people in the protests, in an updated
toll issued on Saturday.
Thousands of people have been arrested since the
protests erupted. Eleven have been sentenced to death, and two have already
been executed.
Meanwhile, reformist newspapers reported that Iran
has released two teenagers arrested on suspicion of taking part in the
protests.
Amir Hossein Rahimi, 15, and Sonia Sharifi, 17, were
both released on Thursday after almost two months in custody, the Etemad and
Ham Mihan dailies reported.
Read more Region and World
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
