As part of its ongoing repressive measures to prevent protests, Iran’s regime has been mounting pressure on the supporters and relatives of the members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).
On December 2, the regime’s judiciary sentenced political prisoners Zahra Safaei, 61, and her children, Parastoo Moeini, 23, and Mohammad Masoud Moeini, 24, as well as Kamran Rezaei-Far, 58, each to five years in prison.
The regime’s judiciary charged them with collaborating and communicating with the PMOI, undermining national security, and participating in activities against the regime. The regime used their private conversations, online activities, and reports of the Intelligence Ministry and interrogators as evidence of their supposed crimes.
Zahra Safaei was imprisoned multiple times for political reasons, including eight years during the 1980s for supporting the PMOI. She was arrested again in 2006 and served another prison term. She was arrested again with her daughter Parastoo in 2019 on political grounds and released in February 2023. Merely months later, both were arrested on September 13 in Tehran and transferred to Ward 209 of Evin Prison.
In May 2020, after being released from solitary confinement, Parastoo Moeini tried to continue her studies in Qarchak Prison. However, regime authorities denied her the opportunity to resume her education and she had to withdraw from the final exams. After her release from prison in February 2023, the regime denied her the opportunity to re-enroll in university.
Haj Hassan Ali Safaei, the father of Zahra Safaei, was a well-known Tehran Bazaar merchant and political prisoner under the Shah dictatorship, was arrested and executed by the mullahs’ regime in 1981 for supporting the PMOI.
Kamran Rezaei-Far was arrested in January 2020 on charges of connection with the PMOI. He was released with a heavy bail, and re-arrested in June 2020. In September 2021, he was sentenced to death.
Also on December 2, political prisoner Maysam Dehbanzadeh was transferred to Evin Prison to serve a six-year prison sentence. He has also been banned from residing in Tehran and neighboring provinces and banned from leaving the country on charges of “assembly and conspiracy with the intent to commit a crime against national security” and communicating with the PMOI.
At the same time, the regime is denying political prisoners their most basic rights. According to reports, the physical conditions of some political prisoners, including Assadollah Hadi, Mir Yousef Younesi, and Ali Moezi, has been reported as critical. Ali Moezi, a 70-year-old PMOI supporter, who has been imprisoned for a total of 15 years since the 1980s, is currently suffering from severe arthritis, severe hydronephrosis, and high blood pressure but has been denied access to medical care. Before his latest arrest in October 2022, he underwent prostate cancer surgery and was recovering at the time of his arrest.
Assadollah Hadi, 66, who has been imprisoned for supporting the PMOI in the 1980s, 2000s, and 2010s, was arrested and transferred to Evin Prison in October 2022. He suffers from heart and vascular diseases, neurological problems, and spinal cord complications. But regime authorities have denied him necessary medical care. Although he has been classified as being “unable to endure punishment,” the regime refuses to release him.
Mir Yousef Younesi, 70, spent nine years in the regime’s prisons in the 1980s and three years in the Shah’s prisons before the 1979 revolution. He was arrested by the regime again in January 2023 and has been in prison since. He is suffering from ear and abdominal diseases but has no access to medical care. His son, Ali Younesi, an elite student at Sharif University of Technology, has been imprisoned in Evin since 2020.
The pressure on political prisoners comes as the regime has gone on a killing spree in its prisons and has ratcheted up executions. All reports indicate that there has been a significant uptick in executions in Iran since the beginning of the war in Gaza. According to the official reports by the regime’s judiciary, in the past 10 days alone, the regime has executed 37 prisoners, including eight political prisoners. And it has executed more than 100 people in the past month.
However, despite the sharp increase in repressive measures, the regime is terrified of the emergence of another round of protests. Protests continue in cities across the country as the people are fed up with the regime’s corruption, mismanagement of the economy, and the repression of freedom. The regime’s officials are constantly warning about the threat of another explosion of social anger. Without having solved the fundamental problems of the society, the regime knows very well that it is only a matter of time before another nationwide uprising erupts.
