New Delhi: Iran arrested the lawyer of two female journalists who were detained after reporting the death of a woman in custody, that triggered three months of protests, news agency AFP reported.
"Mohammad Ali Kamfirouzi, the lawyer for several activists and journalists, has been arrested," a report by Ham Mihan newspaper said.
According to the report, with this arrest, the total number of lawyers detained in connection with the protests rose to 25.
It is to be noted that Kamfirouzi's clients Niloufar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi were the two female journalists who were arrested after covering Amini's death and its aftermath.
According to Kamfirouzi's lawyer Mohammad Ali Bagherpour, his client had not received a summons, he was unaware of the charges he faced and had been detained without any legal formalities.
Hamedi, who works at the reformist newspaper Shargh, was detained on September 20 after she visited the hospital where Amini had spent three days in a coma before her death. Mohammadi, a journalist at Ham Mihan, was taken into custody on September 29 following her travel to Amini's hometown of Saqez in Kurdistan province to report on her funeral.
The two journalists were charged on November 8 with propaganda against the state and conspiring against national security, which are considered to be capital crimes under the sharia law in force in Iran.
Iran on December 3 said that more than 200 people, including dozens of security personnel, have been killed in the protests, which the government describes as "riots".
In an updated toll on Saturday, a Norway-based group, Iran Human Rights, said Iran's security forces had killed at least 469 people in the protests.
Thousands of people have been arrested since the protests started, eleven have been sentenced to death and two have already been executed, according to the AFP report.