It was predictable enough, but should be highlighted nonetheless. From Amnesty International:
Iran’s authorities have intensified the clampdown on dissidents ahead of the country’s presidential election on 14 June, Amnesty International said in a new briefing published today.
The briefing, Iran: Repression of dissent intensifies in run-up to presidential elections, documents dozens of arbitrary arrests and other human rights abuses in the run-up to election day, targeting journalists, political activists, trade unionists, advocates of greater rights for Iran’s religious and ethnic minorities, and students.
“The escalation in repression is an outrageous attempt by the Iranian authorities to silence critics ahead of the presidential election,” said Philip Luther, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.
“The surge in recent violations underlines Iran’s continued and brazen flouting of human rights standards through its persecution of political dissidents and betrays the glaring absence of a meaningful human rights discourse in the election campaign.”
From the briefing itself:
Those targeted include political activists, journalists and other media workers, trade unionists, advocates of greater rights for Iran’s religious and ethnic minorities, students and others. In many cases, the full reasons for arrest and detention are not known; in others, those arrested have been brought before the courts on sweeping but vaguely worded charges, convicted and sentenced to prison terms. In yet other cases, individuals who were sentenced in previous years but not made to serve them immediately or else released provisionally for medical reasons have been summoned to prison to serve what remains of their sentences as the authorities seek to pre-empt protests at the time of the presidential election.