While a government crackdown on opposition leaders and activists inside Iran continues, those living in exile have not been spared either. Several Iranian journalists and writers living abroad have received messages threatening “ultimate punishment” if they did not stop activities deemed to be “against the Islamic Republic”.
Opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi and their wives have been arrested and taken to the Heshmatiyeh jail in Tehran, it has been reported. The pair were previously put under house arrest after they called for demonstration, following the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings. The Iranian government denies the arrest, maintaining that the terms of house arrest have simply been made more stringent.
Marcus Hellwig and Jens Koch, the German journalists imprisoned in Tabriz have been released, after the government reduced their 20 month sentences for reporting on the case of a Iranian woman sentenced to death for adultery in 2006.
The German chancellor, criticism of the foreign minister’s meeting with Iranian president, saying it was necessary to secure the journalists’ release.