The family of Jamshid Sharmahd, the leader of the "Thunder" group, say that he was abducted by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence of the Islamic Republic while he was living in Dubai.
Mr. Sharmahd's family told the Associated Press on Tuesday that his cell phone location information showed that he had been taken to Oman before being transferred to Iran.
"We want the support of free and democratic countries," Jamshid's son Shayan Sharmahd told the Associated Press. This is a violation of human rights. "You cannot kidnap someone from a third country and take them home."
He added that his father was planning to travel from Dubai to India for a business deal and hoped that he would be able to change his plane despite the outbreak of the Corona virus.
Mr. Sharmahd's son says that the last time they received a message from his father was on July 28, and since then he has not responded to his calls or messages.
Shayan says his father's cell phone location that day showed the Dubai International Airport hotel where he was staying.
It is not clear how he was abducted. A hotel manager said that Mr. Sharmahd had settled his account on July 29.
His cell phone location information shows that he left Dubai for Al-Ain in the south of the UAE on the same day and entered Oman after crossing the border. He also spent the night near an Islamic school in the border town of Al-Barimi.
Tracing the location of Mr. Sharmahd's mobile phone shows that he went to the port of Sohar in southern Oman on July 30 (August 9), where his location was turned off.
Two days later, the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence announced in a statement that it had arrested Mr. Sharmahd "following a complex operation."
Hossein Tayeb, the head of the IRGC's intelligence service, called Mr. Sharmahd's detention a "sign of the authority and strength of the intelligence community."
Iran's intelligence ministry, meanwhile, said it had taken charge of the Thunder group in Iran.
How are the opponents of the Iranian government 'kidnapped' abroad?
The list of political opponents abroad who fell into the hands of the Iranian government's security forces is long. In this article, we take a look at the fate of some of these figures: اک Ali Akbar Ghorbani Nikji (head of security of the Mojahedin Organization), Ali. Tavassoli (one of the leaders of the People's Fadaiyan Organization of the majority), Foroud Fooladvand (founder of the Royal Society of Iran) and Abdolmalek Rigi (founder of Jundallah) and finally Ruhollah Zam (one of the founders of Amnnews).
The exact fate and judicial process of some of these people is not known.
Among the domestic opposition, the argument was sometimes quoted that the Iranian government was trying to drive its influential opponents and critics out of the country. In recent decades, this policy has taken on another aspect: Iran's security apparatus has drawn in its influential opposition or, in some cases, has leaked information abroad.
Ali Akbar Ghorbani Nikji, a figure close to the Mojahedin, was abducted in June 1992. The Mojahedin confirmed his abduction and opened a case before the Turkish judiciary.
Several Turkish citizens are said to have abducted him in the شیişli district of Istanbul when he left his home to get in his car.
The Mojahedin organization wrote about how he was abducted: "Two Turks approached him in police uniforms and showed him the police ID card and asked him to go to the police station with them to answer some questions. Ali Akbar Ghorbani, who suspected them, started "Asking them that they are attacking him and using anesthetics to anesthetize him and take him away."
Ali Tavassoli was one of the leaders of the Fadaiyan Khalq Organization, who left for Baku on a business trip in 1995, but suddenly left Iran and was imprisoned.
Amnesty International's report confirms the possibility of his abduction by the Ministry of Intelligence and his transfer to Iran.
In the mid-1980s, Fooladvand was one of the figures who became famous for his sharp critique of Islam on satellite television.
Fathullah Manouchehri, who calls himself Foroud Fooladvand, ran a television network called the Royal Society of Iran.
His son Kianoosh Manouchehri later confirmed his abduction and detention by Iranian security forces.
Fathullah Manouchehri and his two companions disappeared in December 2006 in Hakkari Province, Turkey.
Alexander Valizadeh, an Iranian-American citizen, and Nazem Schmidt, an Iranian-German citizen, were also arrested with him.
At the time, Amnesty International confirmed their detention and wrote that they were likely being held in the Ministry of Intelligence detention center.
Mr. Folavand said he was looking to organize a group to overthrow the Iranian government.
An examination of a number of cases of political opponents of the Islamic Republic who have disappeared or been released from prisons in Iran shows that these incidents have generally occurred in Iran's neighboring countries.
In many cases, the Iranian government has portrayed the return of political opponents to the country as the success and authority of its political systems. The arrest of Abdul Malik Rigi, the leader of the Jundallah group in the winter of 1995, was no exception and he considered a great success for the Ministry of Intelligence.
The then Iranian Interior Minister, Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, announced that Rigi had been arrested abroad and transferred to Iran. Minister of Intelligence Haidar Moslehi, however, said that Ministry of Intelligence agents managed the operation abroad but arrested him inside the country.
Jundallah was opposed to the Islamic Republic and stated that his goal was to protect the rights of Iran's Sunni minority, especially in Sistan and Baluchestan Province.
Abdolmalek Rigi was convicted of moharebeh and corruption on earth and was executed in June 2010.
Ruhollah Zam is another political opponent of the Islamic Republic who has fallen into the hands of Iranian security officials.
It seems that the arrest and transfer of political opponents inside the country is still an "up-to-date project" for the republic.
This time, too, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced that the force's intelligence service had arrested Ruhollah Zam, the director of the Amnnews telegram channel, in a "smart intelligence operation."
The arrest, or what the Iranian security services call "trapping security suspects," is also a major victory and a propaganda campaign, and hours after the news of Ruhollah Zam's arrest was announced, he was blindfolded on state television as "confessing." That's wrong.
Is kidnapping a low-cost alternative to eliminating opponents?
In the 1960s and 1970s (1980), the Iranian government was accused of assassinating its political opponents abroad.
In the most famous example, the German judiciary blamed the Iranian government for the assassination of three leaders and accused their translator of "state terrorism" at the Mykonos restaurant in Berlin. The court's ruling prompted European countries to expel their ambassadors from Iran at the time.
Since then, for at least a few years, no assassination attempt has been made against the political opponents of the Iranian government, or if it did, it has not been made public. The cost of killing dissidents abroad had risen, so perhaps bringing dissidents inside the country or kidnapping them became more of a priority.
At least until the arrests of Abdolmalek Rigi and Ruhollah Zam, the Iranian government tried to keep the arrests secret. But now it is doing so with widespread publicity.
Abdolmalek Rigi's confession was broadcast on Iranian state television a few days after his arrest. As for Ruhollah Zam, the Iranian government was in such a hurry that just a few minutes after the news of his arrest was broadcast, a few minutes of his "forced confessions" were broadcast on television.
Trapping those whom the Islamic Republic considers dangerous in some way is not limited to political opponents. People like Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear expert, have fallen into the hands of the Iranian government in similar ways or by bribery.
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