Tehran's Revolutionary Court has issued an arrest warrant for the head of the Freedom Movement of Iran, Ebrahim Yazdi, who is currently in US for medical treatment, reported the official Iranian news agency, IRNA, on Tuesday.
The court took action after Yazdi failed to show up in court to face charges that could result in the death penalty.
"The judiciary agents should arrest the defendant and return him to Bench 21 of Tehran's Revolutionary Court," a court statement said.
Yazdi, the secretary general of the banned Freedom Movement of Iran, was ordered in April to return home before May 1 to face charges of "acting against national security and arms possession."
"Since he (Yazdi) has defected...legal action has been taken against him through the Interpol," the statement said.
Some 60 intellectuals and liberal dissidents, mostly linked to FMI, have been put in "temporary" solitary confinement without trial since the court's crackdown on free speech started on March 11.
They are accused of "attempting to topple the Islamic establishment" which amounts to "moharaba," a charge carrying the death penalty under Iran's Islamic law.
FMI was established after the 1979-Islamic revolution by the then prime minister Mehdi Bazargan.
Last month, a group of current and former parliamentary deputies criticized Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi over the round-up of dissidents. They said the arrests lacked any "legal justification." – Albawaba.com
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