Iran’s Intelligence Ministry Says It Arrested Three Mossad Agents

The footage of Maghsoudi showed her apparently resisting the arrest of her brother, Hamid-Reza Maghsoudi, who was in her car at a gas station in Boroujerd, Lorestan province, on April 16.

The clip shows Fatemeh Maghsoudi, the city’s parliamentary representative, calling for help and attempting to free her brother from three police officers trying to take him into custody. Hamid-Reza Maghsoudi had been on the run since sentenced to five years in prison in January for selling a property he did not own.

Maghsoudi later claimed the officers had not introduced themselves, making her think he was the victim of an attempted kidnap. But some social media users were outraged and argued that she had not been complying with the law.

In an interview with the Iranian Labour News Agency published Wednesday, Maghsoudi, who is secretary of the women’s faction in parliament, took issue with Tasnim News for describing her as a reformist. She insisted she was a principlist and “completely a follower” of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

In her latest book published earlier in April, titled ‘The Uncaged Sky: My 804 days in an Iranian prison’ the Australian-British expert on Islamic studies detailed her daily struggle to survive her incarceration.

Having spent time in two of the most notorious Iranian prisons -- Evin and Qarchak – she tells the readers how she was pushed to the limit of her endurance by extreme physical and psychological deprivation as she was held in a filthy solitary confinement cell for months, and subjected to relentless interrogation.

She narrated how she began adopting a strategy of resistance against her captors through multiple hunger strikes, letters smuggled to the media, and coordinated protests with other prisoners, as well as an escape attempt that led to her transfer to the isolated desert prison Qarchak.

She was arrested at Tehran Airport by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on September 12, 2018, was convicted of espionage in a closed-door trial, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Moore-Gilbert, who is a lecturer in Islamic Studies at Melbourne University, was released in November 2020 in a prisoner swap with three Iranian prisoners in Thailand, two of whom had been convicted in connection with a bombing plot in Bangkok in 2012.

In an open letter to German and Austrian foreign ministers published in Die Welt on Monday, the families of Nahid Taghavi, Jamshid Sharmahd, Kamran Ghaderi, and Masoud Mossaheb urged their respective governments to show they are committed to human rights.

The families questioned whether the two governments were doing enough to confront the Islamic Republic over its “hostage-taking” policy — targeting foreign citizens to use as bargaining chips to settle disputes with European governments.

“When, if not now, would it be time to publicly name our loved ones; to stand behind them, your citizens, and to demand their release with all vehemence?”, they asked Annalena Baerbock and Alexander Schallenberg.

Taghavi, 67, a German-Iranian rights activist is imprisoned since October 2020 and is sentenced to 10 years, while, Sharmahd, 66, is kept in isolation at a secret location since he was snatched by Iranian agents while travelling to India in August 2020. Sharmahd is accused of involvement in a 2008 mosque bombing in Iran that killed 14 people.

Mossaheb, 75, an engineer; and Ghaderi, 58, a businessman, are both held in Evin prison after each was sentenced to a decade in what rights groups say were unfair trials.

Mostafa Nili said on Tuesday that despite the delivery of the medicines to the Qarchak Prison, the authorities have refused to hand them over to Mohammadi, who was on furlough for the surgery until last week.

He said that Mohammadi has a coronary stent in one of her main arteries and must take her heart medication regularly.

Nili added that any delay in taking the medications can make the treatment process ineffective and even endanger her health.

Taghi Rahmani, her husband, had told Radio Farda that doctors believe she needed a longer period of recovery before she had to return to prison.

In a five-minute trial in late January, she was sentenced to eight years in jail and 70 lashes by Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court, for trumped-up political chagres.

Mohammadi was arrested in November last year at the death anniversary of a victim shot by security forces during the November 2019 protests, reportedly while shopping.

She has been to jail several times over the past two decades. She was freed from Evin Prison in September 2020 after serving more than five years when she had no contact with her husband and children for long periods of time.

Persecution of human rights and political activists and executions have increased since hardliner president Ebrahim Raisi took office last August.

Lawmaker Mansour Haghighatpour said on Tuesday that Faezeh Hashemi has crossed the Islamic Republic's "red lines" and "trampled on the country's values and national interests. So much leniency emboldens people like her. I believe that the Islamic Republic must take appropriate punitive action against Faezeh Hashemi and discipline her," he said.

Hashemi is the daughter of former president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani and a member of the Central Council of the pro-reform Kargozaran-e Sazandegi (Executives of Construction) Party.

Fars news agency affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard on Tuesday called Hashemi a "foot soldier" of the United States while another IRGC-affiliated media outlet, Javan newspaper dubbed her "flagrant" and criticized her party and the Rafsanjani clan for not officially renouncing her.

Hashemi had said during a discussion on the social media app Clubhouse on April 16 that removing the IRGC from the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) was not in Iran's interest.

Hashemi had argued it is possible that certain factions in the IRGC may be intentionally taking actions to keep the whole entity on the US terrorist list. She cited IRGC's missile attack on Iraq's Kurdish regional capital of Erbil in March and criticized the Guards for boasting about the attack instead of keeping a profile as the country’s defender, posing no threat to others in the region.

She also said the IRGC is constantly broadening both the sphere and scope of its activities in Iran’s economy and politics, making it even harder to stick to its military role. “The only way for the IRGC to return to the barracks is to keep them on the [FTO] sanctions list,” she said.

This is not the first time in recent years that Hashemi has ventured into criticizing the Iranian regime’s core values or positions, espoused by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his hardliner supporters. In January, she said the Islamic Republic was responsible in the killing half a million Syrians with its military intervention in the Syrian civil war.

Hardliner social media users have accused Hashemi of being a traitor to the country, while others including some anti-regime activists have said that her criticism of the regime could only be acceptable when she also admits her father's role in engineering the selection of Ali Khamenei as Supreme Leader in 1989, and later allowing the IRGC to assume an economic role.

Abdolreza Davari, one of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's advisors and confidants said Hashemi was wrong to say the IRGC should not be delisted and considered her remarks "against national security" but defended her right to freedom of expression. "Why should she and her late father be subjected to so many threats, accusations, and abuse instead of her remarks being logically criticized?" Davari tweeted.

Faezeh Hashemi is perhaps the most controversial of Hashemi-Rafsanjani's five children and often targeted by hardliners for her candid criticism of the regime, compulsory hijab, and prosecution of followers of the banned Baha'i faith. She is also the former president of Women's Sports Federation and editor-in-chief of banned reformist Zan newspaper.

Hashemi has been prosecuted for her activities on several occasions and served two six-month prison sentences for "propaganda against the state" and similar charges in 2012 and 2017.