Lawmaker says 3,700 arrested in Iran protests

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iranian security forces arrested some 3,700 people during widespread protests and unrest over the past two weeks, a lawmaker said Tuesday, offering a far higher number than authorities previously released.

The demonstrations, which began Dec. 28 over economic grievances, quickly spread across the country to become the largest seen in Iran since the disputed 2009 presidential election.

Some protesters called for the overthrow of the government, and at least 21 people were killed in clashes.

Human rights activists outside of Iran told The Associated Press they weren’t surprised by the figure as authorities also allegedly carried out so-called “preventative arrests” of students not involved in the protests. Some 4,000 arrests followed the 2009 protests.

Activists also said they had concerns about Iran’s prisons and jails being overcrowded and dangerous, pointing to allegations of torture, abuse and deaths that followed the mass arrests of 2009.

The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran said at least three detainees arrested in the recent protests have died in custody.

Mahmoud Sadeghi, a reformist lawmaker from Tehran, offered the new figures for those arrested in a report carried Tuesday by parliament’s official news website.

Authorities previously spoke of hundreds of arrests in Tehran, while other provinces offered only piecemeal figures, if any at all.

Sadeghi did not elaborate, nor did he say how he came up with the figure.

While reformists largely stayed away from the recent protests, releasing such figures puts pressure on their hard-line opponents who exercise control over Iran’s judiciary and security services.