NCRI – On Friday afternoon, January 16, 2009, dozens of family members of Ashraf City residents traveling to Iraq in order to see their relatives were arrested at Tehran airport. The majority of those arrested are women between 60 to 80 years of age. They have been violently beaten by the mullahs’ Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) henchmen.
The arrested families have been taken to solitary confinement in the notorious Evin prison’s Ward 209, and consequently, their residences have been raided and searched by the regime’s suppressive forces. Their belongings have been seized and even their children have seen armed men threatening them.
The identities of some of those arrested are as follows:
– Ms. Sakineh Soleiman Zahed (mother of Mr. Heshmat Javadi, an Ashraf City resident) who was arrested along with her daughter, Zahra Javadi. Ms. Zahed had previously been a political prisoner at Evin;
– Ms. Ferdos Mahboubi (mother of Mr. Asadollah Mosana). Ms. Mahboubi had also previously been incarcerated at Evin prison as a political prisoner;
– Ms. Ezzat Nouri (grandmother of Mr. Nasser Khademi, resident of Ashraf City, and mother of Hamid Khademi who was slain by the mullahs’ henchmen in 1982);
– Ms. Fatemeh Sadeghi (mother of Ms. Roghieh Amirkhizi, an Ashraf City resident), who was arrested with her daughter Ms. Kobra Amirkhizi. The Amirkhizi family is a well known family in Tehran and has had a number of its members executed by the mullahs’ regime;
– Mr. and Mrs. Poureghbal, and Ms. Parisa Poureghbal (parents and sister of Ms. Parvaneh and Mr. Hamidreza Poureghbal);
– Ms. Azizeh Shafinia (mother of Ms. Arezou Heydarzadeh, an Ashraf City resident). Ms. Sahfinia’s son, Moussa Heydarzadeh, has been executed by the mullahs’ regime;
– Ms. Jamileh Mohammadzadeh (Mr. Ebrahim Saeedi’s mother);
– Ms. Kobra Badiroudi, Mr. Bahrami and Ms. Atefeh Bahrami (parents and sister of Mr. Alireza Bahrami);
– And, a number of relatives of Messrs Vahid and Mehdi Rezaii, both Ashraf City residents.
In December 2008, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) had published and sent to international authorities a list of names of 87 other relatives of Ashraf City residents who had been arrested and imprisoned by the mullahs’ regime after visiting their relatives in Ashraf.
The beating and arrest of elderly parents of PMOI members once more demonstrates the unbound brutality exercised by the mullahs’ regime, and at the same time shows the extent to which this regime fears the PMOI and the Iranian Resistance.
The Iranian Resistance demands international condemnation of the brutal suppression of PMOI and Ashraf City family members, and calls for immediate intervention by international authorities and human rights organizations to free the arrested relatives.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
January 17, 2009
