A Tehran revolutionary court has ordered a reformist student leader jailed following his appearance at the court last Wednesday as an "impartial" witness, reported the official Iranian news agency, IRNA, citing a local news agency.
The student news agency, ISNA, reported Friday that Amir-Hossein Balali, 22, the secretary of the political unit of the Islamic Association of Students in the Amir-Kabir University of Technology, was taken into custody upon the order of Bench 16 of Tehran's Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Mohammad Haddad.
"The security agents later on ransacked his home and took all his personal belongings," ISNA said. It noted that Balali had earlier showed up in the court Sunday.
ISNA did not give any details on the cause of the arrest, said IRNA.
The student leader, Ali Afshari, who was the head of the Islamic Association of Students at the same university, has been held in solitary confinement for over six months.
In recent weeks press reports said he was to be released on $250,000 bail. However, the court has again decided to deny him bail.
Afshari, 29, was slapped with a six-year jail term for taking part in an "anti-Islamic" conference in Germany, and was later denounced for being part of a plot to overthrow the Islamic republic.
Another student, Ahmad Batebi, was initially sentenced to death but later had his sentence commuted to 15 years in jail. The 23-year-old student was caught on world media brandishing a blood-soaked shirt during student unrest that followed a government crackdown – Albawaba.com
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