Iran Arrests 70 Profs Who Met With Mousavi

Iranian authorities arrested 70 university professors yesterday, after they met with Mir Hossein Mousavi, according to a dissident website, as the regime intensified its crackdown on demonstrators. The professors' whereabouts are now unknown, but hundreds of activists are now being held in a prison system notorious for torture and human rights abuses. Tehran is calmer today after yesterday's brutal scenes, and an opposition rally scheduled for today has been canceled.

Western media outlets have received numerous reports of nighttime roundups of opposition figures and international journalists, but the allegations are difficult to confirm because of restrictions on reporting. Pro-Mousavi media outlets have also been targeted; 25 journalists at a paper sympathetic to the candidate were arrested on Monday, and Iranian intelligence said it had raided the outlet's headquarters to stop "promotion of unrest and efforts to undermine the country's security."
(More Iran stories.)