Iranian judiciary said on Tuesday that 40 foreign nationals had been arrested over two months of protests in the country.
“Forty foreign nationals implicated in the recent riots have been arrested,” judiciary spokesman Masoud Setayeshi said in comments carried by its Mizan Online news website.
Setayeshi did not elaborate which countries were these foreigners from.
Iran has been rocked by nationwide protests since September after death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. The Iranian-Kurdish woman was detained by Iran’s morality police over her ‘inappropriate’ attire before her death. Amini’s passing sparked anger which has even had Iran’s clerical regime in crosshairs.
Iranian regime including President Ebrahim Raisi have chosen to denounce the protests as ‘rioters’
Iranian officials have repeatedly accused Western governments of stoking the protests over Amini’s death.
A number of Westerners, some of them dual nationals, were already in custody in Iran before the latest protests broke out in September.
French teachers’ union official Cecile Kohler and her partner Jacques Paris were detained in May, following teachers’ strikes earlier in the year.
Both have been charged with espionage and have been held in isolation since their arrests, French trade union sources have said.
“The two French spies remain in custody and their case is in the final decision stage,” Setayeshi said on Tuesday, without elaborating.
(With inputs from agencies)
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