Image: from Hengaw Organization for Human Rights
OPEN CHRONICLE | Global Perspective. Unfiltered Truth.
By Open Chronicle Staff with Agencies
TEHRAN/MUNICH — As global leaders debate the collapse of the international order at the Munich Security Conference, a grimmer reality is unfolding across the Iranian plateau. In a series of sweeping raids spanning eleven cities, Iranian government forces have detained at least twelve more individuals, including prominent members of the intelligentsia and civil society, bringing the total number of verified arrests in the current protest wave toward a staggering new high.
According to the latest report from the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, the newest wave of detentions targeted a diverse cross-section of Iranian society, from poets and lawyers to athletes and journalists, many of whom have been transferred to undisclosed locations.
The Poet and the Theater Critic
Among the high-profile targets is Khashayar Rezvani, a 41-year-old Lor poet and writer originally from Gachsaran. Rezvani was arrested in Tehran on January 14 and is currently being held in the notorious Greater Tehran Prison. Sources indicate his detention order was extended for another month on Saturday, February 14, as authorities continue to build cases against figures deemed influential in the “December 2025 Strikes.”
Joining him in the burgeoning prison system is Abdollah Aajparin, a theater director and critic who has been held incommunicado since January 8. The targeting of cultural figures appears to be a systematic effort to silence the narrative voices of the protest movement.
Journalism and Law Under Fire
The crackdown has not spared those who document the state’s actions or defend its victims. In the southern port city of Gonaveh, journalist Morteza Khezri was abducted in recent days, his current whereabouts unknown.
Meanwhile, in Shiraz, the legal community is reeling from the arrest of Hamid Norouzi, a member of the Fars Bar Association. Norouzi was taken into custody on February 14 during a violent raid on his home. The arrest of a defense lawyer is seen by human rights groups as a direct assault on the right to legal representation for the thousands currently filling Iranian jails.
The Human Cost of “Stability”
The reports from Hengaw paint a portrait of a nation gripped by a silent, state-sponsored terror. In Joveyn, Hadi Molayjerdi was arrested on January 13. His detention has left his family without its primary provider following his father’s recent death. In Sabzevar, 18-year-old athlete Mousa al-Reza Alavi was reportedly subjected to physical assault and violence during his arrest on January 8.
These arrests are taking place against the backdrop of what some international observers call the “erosion of public trust” in Tehran. While hardline state media dismisses parallels to the recent fall of the Maduro government in Venezuela, the scale of the “December 2025” and “January 2026” protest movements has clearly unnerved the establishment.
With over 1,000 people estimated to have been arrested in the last two months alone, and many facing charges as severe as moharebeh (waging war against God), the 2026 Munich Security Conference’s warnings about the “death of rules” find their most literal and lethal application in the streets and prisons of Iran.