Doctor and blogger Mehdi Khazali has been arrested in Tehran, charged with “acting against national security and disturbing public opinion”. His website is openly critical of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and he has controversially claimed that the president has Jewish roots. In 2008, he was disqualified from standing in parliamentary elections and spent 23 days in solitary confinement last year following the post-election crackdown. His father is a prominent conservative cleric and member of the influential Assembly of Experts, who has disavowed his son’s actions.