Committee of Human Rights Reporters – On January 27, 2013, five followers of Ayatollah Dastgheib were arrested in Shiraz.
Per a source close to Ayatollah Dastgheib, the name of one of the individuals detained is Taher Faghih. Another 4 individuals were detained at their home in the early hours of Sunday January 27th. There is no obtained information at present regarding the names of the other 4 detained individuals.
Ayatollah Dastgheib is a senior cleric and member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts who has been critical of the judiciary and security forces since their confrontations with protesters during the aftermath of the 2009 disputed presidential elections. The dissident cleric did not attend the annual meeting of the Assembly of Experts in protest. He recently issued a statement stating that those who put the opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Zahra Rahnavard under house arrest since 2011 are “guilty of committing a crime," and their actions are “against the Sharia”(Islamic law). He stressed that all political prisoners in Iran must be released.
