A woman was arrested by Iranian security officials after a picture of her and another woman eating at a restaurant in Tehran without wearing headscarves went viral online, as per her family. The picture, which surfaced on Wednesday, shows the two women eating breakfast at a café that, like most coffee shops in Iran, is normally frequented by men. Not long after the photo was uploaded online, Donya Rad, one of the women, was arrested. Security services called Donya and urged her to show up in person to defend her actions, according to her sister, who talked with CNN.
After going to the designated location, her sister claims that she was arrested. After a few hours passed with no updates, Donya called to inform her sister that she had been moved to Ward 209 of the Evin Prison. Political dissidents are held captive by the government in Tehran’s notoriously brutal Evin Prison, which is only meant for detainees under the command of Iran’s intelligence ministry.
According to reports, security forces recently imprisoned a number of well-known Iranians, including Hossein Mahini, an Iranian football player, Mona Borzouei, a writer and poet, and Faezeh Rafsanjani, the daughter of the former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
The front cover of the government-aligned newspaper Hamshahri daily on Thursday featured Ali Karimi, a former football star, with well-known Iranian actors and artists who have been vocal in their support for the protesters. ‘ Celebrities of Disturbance,’ the heading stated.
They are listed as ‘one of the primary causes of recent popular protest’ in the article. Following protests that lasted over two weeks, the government continued its crackdown, sparking clashes between security forces that left many people dead. Iran Human Rights estimated that at least 83 people, including children, died as a result of the demonstrations that followed Mahsa Amini’s death while under guard.
As of last weekend, more than a thousand protesters had been detained, reports the official news agency IRNA. At least 28 journalists have been detained, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists’ estimate as of Thursday. Amnesty International said in a statement on Thursday that it is ‘investigating the authorities’ mass arrests of protesters and bystanders, as well as journalists, political activists, lawyers, and human rights defenders, including women’s rights activists and those belonging to oppressed ethnic minority groups’.
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