Iranian Political Prisoner Summoned After Calling Elections Engineered

Political prisoner Mostafa Tajzadeh, held in the infamous Evin Prison, has been summoned to court again over new charges, his Telegram channel reported on Wednesday.

According to the subpoena, Tajzadeh is required to appear in court on Sunday to defend himself against the two allegations of “assembling and conspiring against national security” and “propaganda against the government.”

“I refused to receive the subpoena and announced that I would not appear in the prosecutor’s office or in court,” said the dissident reformist politician, further adding, “The judiciary can sentence me in absentia to several more years in prison, breaking its previous record of 15-year sentence handed down to me over my criticisms of the Leader.”

The summons came a day after Tajzadeh called the recent elections in Iran “engineered” and a “historic failure” of the system and the person of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Iranian regime media, including the IRGC-affiliated Fars news website, claimed a voter turnout of more than 40% in parliamentary and the Assembly of Experts elections on March 1, the lowest in the history of the Islamic Republic. Political activists, opposition parties and large sections of the public boycotted the event.

Tajzadeh was responsible for holding the parliamentary elections of 2000 as deputy interior minister. An outspoken critic of Khamenei since the controversial presidential elections of 2009, he has spent more than eight years behind bars since then.

Earlier in February, he accused the Supreme Leader of turning a blind eye to the nation's challenges, saying Khamenei “has closed his eyes to Iran’s disastrous realities and ignores the cries of millions of Iranians in protest.”