Crackdown on dissent after nationwide protests in Iran widens to ensnare
reformist figures
[February 09, 2026]
By JON GAMBRELL
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iranian security forces have launched
a campaign to arrest figures within the country's reformist movement,
reports said Monday.
That widens a crackdown on dissent after authorities earlier put down
nationwide protests in violence that killed thousands and saw tens of
thousands more detained.
Detained Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi has received
another prison sentence of over seven years. It signals a widening
effort to silence anyone opposed to the bloody suppression of unrest by
Iran's theocracy as it faces new nuclear talks with the United States.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly warned he could launch an attack
on the country if no deal is reached.
Media reports quoted officials within the reformist movement, which
seeks to change Iran's theocracy from inside, as saying at least four of
their members had been arrested. They include Azar Mansouri, the head of
the Reformist Front, which represents multiple reformist factions; and
former diplomat Mohsen Aminzadeh, who served under reformist President
Mohammad Khatami.
Also detained was Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, who led students who stormed the
U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979, sparking the 444-day hostage crisis.
Their arrests likely stem from a reformist statement in January that
called for Iran's 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to
resign from his position and have a transitional governing council
oversee the country.
Iran's state-run IRNA news agency quoted a statement from prosecutors in
Tehran, the country's capital, saying four people had been arrested and
others summoned to meet authorities. It accused those allegedly involved
of “organizing and leading ... activities aimed at disrupting the
political and social situation in the country amid military threats from
the United States and the Zionist regime.”
“Having bludgeoned the streets into silence with exemplary cruelty, the
regime has shifted its attention inward, fixing its stare on its loyal
opposition,” wrote Ali Vaez, an Iran expert at the International Crisis
Group.
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Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, one of the Iranian student leaders of the 1979
U.S. Embassy takeover, speaks in an interview with The Associated
Press in Tehran, Iran, on Oct. 29, 2019. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi,
File)
“The reformists, sensing the ground move beneath them, had begun to
drift — and power, ever paranoid, is now determined to cauterize
dissent before it learns to walk.”
However, it remains unclear just how much political support
reformists have within Iran. The anger on the streets of Iran during
the demonstrations, heard in people shouting “Death to Khamenei!”
and in support of the country's exiled crown prince, appeared to
lump reformists in with all other politicians now working in the
Islamic Republic.
Iran and the U.S. held new nuclear talks last week in Oman. Foreign
Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking Sunday to diplomats at a summit in
Tehran, signaled that Iran would stick to its position that it must
be able to enrich uranium — a major point of contention with Trump,
who bombed Iranian atomic sites in June during the 12-day
Iran-Israel war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to travel to Washington
this week, with Iran expected to be the major subject of discussion,
his office said.
The U.S. has moved the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, ships
and warplanes to the Middle East to pressure Iran into an agreement
and have the firepower necessary to strike the Islamic Republic
should Trump choose to do so.
Meanwhile, Iran issued a warning to pilots that it planned “rocket
launches” Monday into Tuesday in an area over the country’s Semnan
province, home to the Imam Khomeini Spaceport. Such launches have
corresponded in the past with Iran marking the anniversary of its
1979 Islamic Revolution.
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