Akbar Amini known as ‘The Crane’ arrested again

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Akbar Amini, the protester who climbed atop a crane during opposition demonstrations a year ago, was detained after being interviewed by opposition media in recent days.

According to the Human Rights House of Iran, security forces raided the home of the activist, inspected it and then took him to an unknown location. The agents carried an arrest warrant issued by Judge Reshteh Ahmadi and explained his recent interview with pro-opposition media was the reason for his arrest.

Early in the morning of 14 February 2011, hours before Green Movement demonstrations in support of the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, Amini hit the headlines by climbing a crane, while wearing a green head band.

Shortly afterwards he was apprehended by law enforcement officers and taken to Evin Prison where he spent his sixteen first days of imprisonment in solitary confinement. The authorities alleged that Amini had been suffering from a mental illness as well as a drug addiction, which had led him to climb the crane. Amin has dismissed the claims saying the Iranian people will be the ones to judge the story.

According to opposition website Kaleme, while still in prison, Akbar was known as the “crane” amongst fellow inmates, in reference to the symbolic move that had gotten him arrested in the first place. In addition, during football or volleyball matches, Amini’s side would also take the name “crane.”

In an interview with Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad just days prior to his arrest, Akbar Amini vowed to continue the struggle for freedom in Iran. “Even when I was under torture and interrogation, I told my interrogators … that injustice would not disappear by means of pressuring, beating, cracking down, imprisoning, suppressing and killing the people,” he said. “Even if I am imprisoned a thousand times again, I will persist on this path which I have chosen knowingly, and will do this over and over again for my country’s freedom,” he added.

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