TIMES ONLINE: The Iranian regime has arrested an elderly and ailing reformist while he underwent medical tests in a Tehran hospital in its latest attempt to repress protests against electoral fraud.
Unable to find him when they called at his home, officials tracked down Ebrahim Yazdi, the 78-year-old leader of the banned but officially tolerated Freedom Movement, as he was undergoing stomach tests and took him away to Evin prison, his family and colleagues say.
Mr Yazdi was the foreign minister in Iran's first government after the 1979 revolution but has been sidelined since hardliners took control.
Mehdi Noorbaksh, Mr Yazdi’s son-in-law who lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, confirmed that he was arrested at Pars Hospital at around 3pm and taken to Evin Prison, near the Iranian capital. Information was scant because phone lines had been cut off, he added.
Hadi Ghaemi, director of the New York-based International Campaign for Human Rights, said that Mr Yazdi was arrested in the intensive care unit. >>> Jenny Booth, Martin Fletcher and Ella Flaye in Tehran | Thursday, June 18, 2009
