Outspoken Iranians overseas say their loved ones ‘being detained by the govt back home’

Cairo: Iran’s government is detaining family members and threatening to seize property of Iranian opposition figures in exile, some say, in the latest crackdown on dissenting voices as the war rages on.

Activists overseas play a key role in tracking the crackdown, which is complicated by the internet shutdown imposed earlier this year during massive nationwide protests against the Islamic theocracy. Watchdogs say security forces shot and killed thousands of people.

The war with the United States and Israel has intensified authorities’ threats against anyone speaking to outside media or activists. Now that pressure appears to be expanding to intimidate activists in exile.

Intelligence agents in Tehran on March 15 detained the brother of Hossein Razzagh, a former political prisoner who fled last year to Europe, Razzagh said.

“My own brother isn’t at all political and doesn’t do any kind of political activity. It’s to put me under pressure,” he said.

His brother, Ali, was taken from his home in Tehran and was able to phone his wife that night “for a few seconds” from a detention centre run by Iran’s Intelligence Ministry, Razzagh said. Since then, the family and his lawyer have been unable to contact him. But the intelligence ministry told them it was reviewing his contact with his brother, Razzagh said.

Another activist who fled, Behnam Chegini, said his 20-year-old niece was detained on March 10 for a week. The niece was taken from her parents’ house in the city of Arak soon after she returned from Tehran, where her university had closed because of the war.

She was later released on bail and put under a travel ban.

Chegini, who is now based in France, said the detention was at least in part “because she is my niece and they know that”.

Sareh Sedighi, an activist who fled after her 2021 death sentence was overturned, said her mother was detained from her home last month in the western town of Urmia.

“The Islamic Republic took my mother away to make me be quiet,” she said. Her mother suffers from health problems and requires daily insulin doses, she added.

And Mahshid Nazemi, a former political prisoner and activist who now lives in France, said at least one friend was detained and questioned about contact with her.

Iran’s judiciary has begun seizing the property of public figures critical of the country’s rulers, under an anti-espionage law approved during last year’s 12-day war with Israel that punishes media and cultural activities deemed to support Iran’s enemies.

A judiciary spokesman on March 31 said on state TV that more than 200 indictments for confiscations have been or are being issued.

Borzou Arjmand, an Iranian actor living in California, found out from news reports that his assets in Iran had been confiscated. After his outspoken support for protests in 2022, Arjmand was unable to return to Iran. Since then, authorities have blocked his bank accounts.

Arjmand has expressed support on social media for Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last shah who has organized an opposition movement abroad and supported US-Israeli strikes.

Pressuring exiled figures is meant “so the Iranian people’s voice doesn’t reach the world,” Arjmand said.

At least three other figures living outside Iran — star soccer player Sardar Azmoun, musician Mohsen Yeghaneh and university professor Ali Sharifi Zarchi — have been on lists of confiscations, according to two semiofficial news agencies in Iran. Yeghaneh and Zarchi have expressed support for anti-government protesters on social media.

Norway-based Iran Human Rights has tracked several hundred detentions since the war began on February 28, using its networks in the country and state media reports, said its director, Mahmood

Amiry-Moghhaddam.