Three of the 14 women who wrote a letter to Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, and called for his resignation and transition from the Islamic Republic have been arrested. Fatemeh Sepehri, Hourieh Farajzadeh, and Narges Mansouri were arrested in Mashhad and Tehran.

The arrests began in Mashhad, with four individuals who wrote the first letter of 14 activists to Khamenei calling for his resignation: Javad Laal Mohammadi, Hashem Khastar, Mohammad Hossein Sepehri, and Mohammad Nourizad, Fatemeh Sepehri, and Hourieh Farajzadeh.

The activists had gathered in front of the courthouse in Mashhad in protest to Professor Kamal Jafari Yazdi’s sentence of 13 years in prison.

According to the reports, the security forces arrested several participants and transferred them to an undisclosed location.

On Sunday afternoon it was reported that Narges Mansouri, once of the 14 signatories of the second letter to Khamenei has been arrested while returning home.

Narges Mansouri is a civil rights and women’s rights activist, member of Tehran busing company union and one of the signatories of the letter of 14 women to Khamenei that called for his resignation and transition from the Islamic Republic.

Before her arrest, Mansouri released a video stating that the “discriminations and oppressions against women under the Islamic Republic is gender apartheid,” and announced: “Despite all the efforts and civil resistance by the women’s movement, oppression and discrimination against women in Iran is staggering. Women are second class citizens under the Islamic Republic.”

“Under the Islamic Republic, women are denied the rights to divorce, get custody, equal inheritance, and becoming the leader, president, minister, or judge. They are not allowed in stadiums. They are denied the most basic right of choosing their clothes. They do not have the right to sing or dance….”

She also calls the Islamic Republic “one of the most misogynistic and inhumane regimes in the world.”