The arrests are part of the regime’s crackdown on opponents on the anniversary of the 2022 Iran protests
Former political prisoners Zahra Safaei and her daughter, Parastoo Moini, were arrested again today, Wednesday, September 13, 2023, by Intelligence Ministry agents in Tehran.
They were transferred to Ward 209 of Evin Prison. No information is available on the reason for the arrest of the two former political prisoners affiliated with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran.
The clerical regime has embarked on a wave of arrests and crackdown on political prisoners and activists as the anniversary of last year’s uprising is approaching.
Who is Zahra Safaei?
Security forces arrested Zahra Safaei in Tehran on February 24, 2020. They also arrested her daughter, Parastoo Mo’ini. They were subsequently transferred to the Intelligence Ministry’s detention center (Ward 209 of Evin Prison). Zahra Safaei and Parastoo Mo’ini were transferred to Qarchak Prison in early March 2020.
On June 28, 2020, Mrs. Safaei was temporarily released from Qarchak Prison, until the end of her trial, on bail of 300 million Tomans. But she was rearrested on July 26, 2020, when she went to the Prosecutor’s Office of Evin Prison to review her case and that of her daughter. On July 27, 2020, she was transferred to Qarchak Prison.
Political prisoner Zahra Safaei, 58, suffered a heart stroke on October 27, 2020, after being harassed and intimidated by prison authorities.
Zahra Safaei, born in 1962, is the daughter of Hassan Ali Safaei, one of Tehran Bazaar’s well-known merchants. Mr. Safaei was one of the political prisoners under the deposed Shah time, who was executed in Evin Prison by the mullahs’ regime in 1981 for being a PMOI supporter.
Zahra Safaei was a political prisoner in the 1960s for eight years in Evin and Qezel Hesar prisons for supporting the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).
Who is Parastoo Moini?
Parastoo Moini, an electrical engineering student at Qazvin International University, was arrested on February 24, 2020. Security forces broke into their home, brutalized her and her mother, Zahra Safaei, and arrested them.
After spending one year in temporary detention, she was sentenced to 5 years in prison on charges of “assembly and collusion.”
In May 2020, Ms. Moini, upon her release from solitary confinement, attempted to continue her studies in Qarchak Prison. However, university officials said that she could not study while in prison. As a result, she requested to withdraw from the final exams through the prison’s judicial department.
After three years of captivity, torture, and mistreatment in Qarchak and Evin prisons, Parastoo Moini was released from jail on February 9, 2023.
On the eve of the beginning of the new semester at school, she requested to return to her studies at Qazvin International University through the Special Cases Commission. In the final week of May, she was informed that she had been expelled and prohibited from entering the dormitory and university premises.
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