Iran’s theocratic rulers are extending their clampdown beyond the streets and into the broader political sphere, targeting politicians who took a stand against the bloody crackdown on protesters.
At least seven members of Iran’s reformist movement—designed to change the Islamic Republic from within—were arrested in recent days, including its leader. The arrests come as the realization that Iranian security forces carried out one of the biggest waves of political killing in recent history creates fractures within the country’s political system. That has prompted many in the reformist camp to stake out much bolder positions against the regime, putting them at risk.
Members of the Reformist Front—an umbrella group for reformist parties and a key backer of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in the last presidential election—broke ranks recently with the government’s official line that the deaths were the work of rioters and terrorists and condemned the killings.
“We declare our disgust and anger at those who ruthlessly and recklessly brought blood and dirt to the youth of this land,” Azar Mansouri, the leader of the Reformist Front, who has become increasingly critical of Iran’s rulers in recent years, said on Telegram. “No power, no justification, and no time can cleanse this great tragedy.”
In a separate post earlier this month, Mansouri said efforts to reform the regime from the inside had failed.
A few days later, on Feb. 8, she was arrested by members of the intelligence unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to the Reformist Front.
Iran’s mission at the United Nations in New York declined to comment. Fars News, affiliated with Iran’s IRGC, said the detained reformist politicians were part of a subversive ring aligned with the country’s enemies. Without naming the individuals, the report said they face accusations that include undermining national unity and planning to incite social and political forces against the Islamic Republic.
“Those who issue statements against the Islamic Republic from within are echoing the voices of the Zionist regime and America,” judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said on social media after the arrests.
Two of the detained reformist leaders—Javad Emam, the Reformist Front’s spokesman and Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, the head of its political committee—were released on bail on Thursday, according to Iranian state media.
Iran’s reformist politicians typically find themselves on the opposite side of more conservative politicians, but they have historically worked within the system to try to ease restrictive social rules and reduce the concentration of power at the regime’s core. Their decision to speak out aggressively shows they feel their accommodative approach has reached its limits after regime forces killed thousands of protesters.
“These comments are important because of where they are happening,” said Omid Memarian, an Iran expert at DAWN, a Washington-based research and advocacy group. “These are government insiders, people who are close to the president.”
The crackdown on reformists leaves the government without voices to moderate the behavior of its hardcore rulers from within. That could make it harder to escape its continuing crisis, where inflexible positions around its nuclear program and social control are putting it under heavy pressure from external powers like the U.S. and Israel and widespread internal dissatisfaction that is only growing deeper.
Other prominent reformist politicians detained in recent days include Mohsen Aminzadeh, a former deputy foreign minister; and Ali Shakouri-Rad, a former lawmaker, according to official state media and reformist publications.
Shakouri-Rad was arrested after a recording of a speech in which he challenged the government’s version of events was published on Jomhuriyat, an opposition Telegram channel, and then was widely shared.
In the recording, Shakouri-Rad said he had told senior reformist politicians they should ask Iran’s 86-year-old supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to resign and to transfer his authority to Pezeshkian.
“At this age, the leader may not be able to change his views, but he can say: I step aside,” he said in the recording. Shakouri-Rad also said he believes Pezeshkian was misled by security forces into accepting that protesters were responsible for the violence, according to the recording.
Some politicians closer to the center are also starting to openly challenge the underpinnings of the regime that has been run by Shiite clerics for nearly half a century. Hossein Marashi, who heads a pragmatist faction that typically focuses on economic reform and diplomacy to stabilize the Iranian system, said in a recent interview with reformist news agency KhabarOnline that the Islamic Republic should preserve its republican identity but that it doesn’t necessarily need to be based on Islam.
In the interview, Marashi called for a reduction of the influence of the IRGC in government affairs and said frustrations about state control of the media, youth unemployment and Iran’s international isolation should be addressed. He hasn’t been detained.
The targeting of reformist politicians sends a signal from Iran’s theocratic leaders that they are in control and that questioning the government’s explanation for the killings is a red line, analysts said.
“The hardliners are sending the clear message that they have the upper hand in shaping the domestic and foreign policy in Iran moving forward,” said Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi, an Iran expert with the Chatham House research group.
Pezeshkian, Iran’s moderate president, is now increasingly isolated. He relied on the backing of reformists to win the 2024 presidential election and vowed to listen to popular grievances over the economy and social and political restrictions. He largely lost that support base as Iran’s economic problems worsened and his government oversaw the lethal repression of mass protests.
Pezeshkian has apologized for the violence, without acknowledging his government’s responsibility. In a speech Wednesday on the occasion of the 47th anniversary of the founding of the Islamic Republic, Pezeshkian said he understood the great sorrow felt by Iranians and expressed sympathy with the security forces who were killed in clashes. He blamed foreign conspiracies for the unrest and called for the nation to unite under Khamenei’s leadership.
Ali Vaez, the Iran project director for the International Crisis Group, said Pezeshkian’s power, once eroding, has now been gutted. “His presidency now resembles a ceremonial stage set: ornate, visible and hollow,” he said.
Other reformist politicians—such as Hassan Khomeini, a grandson of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini—have sided squarely with the government and accused the protesters of being violent rioters working for foreign governments.
After the paramilitary IRGC and the plainclothes Basij militia killed thousands of demonstrators to put down the mass protests last month, Iran’s government has carried out waves of arrests aimed at preventing the unrest from flaring up again.
More than 52,600 people have been arrested since the start of the protests, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran. The U.S.-based group has so far confirmed the deaths of around 7,000 people since the demonstrations began in late December.
Those detained include protesters and their sympathizers—students, civil-rights activists, medical workers who treated protesters and family members of the victims—according to relatives of those arrested, residents and rights groups.
The repression hasn’t stopped Iranians from unleashing a new wave of anger as they reckon with the enormous toll of the crackdown.
On Tuesday night—ahead of planned government celebrations for the Islamic Republic’s anniversary—people chanted “Death to Khamenei” and “Death to the Dictator” from their apartment windows in various parts of Tehran, according to videos verified by Storyful, which is owned by News Corp, parent company of The Wall Street Journal.
Many who participated in the mass protests see U.S. military intervention as the only realistic path to overthrowing the Islamic Republic. These people oppose ongoing talks focused on curtailing Iran’s nuclear program.
One 17-year-old schoolgirl in north Tehran said the city felt like a vast cemetery. “Now if you walk on the streets of Iran, for every step you take, someone has died there,” she said.
“America should really raze it to the ground and collect its ashes,” she said of the regime.
Write to Margherita Stancati at margherita.stancati@wsj.com and Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com