Yalda Emamdoust, an athlete and mother of two, has been held in detention for more than two months. Security forces arrested her in early August 2025 at her home in Isfahan and took her to an undisclosed location without presenting any judicial warrant.
More than 60 days after her arrest, there is still no information about her whereabouts or condition despite her family’s repeated inquiries. None of the judicial or security bodies in Iran have accepted responsibility for her detention.
Born in 1975 in Ilam and residing in Isfahan, Yalda Emamdoust is a well-known long-distance marathon runner who has competed in several provincial competitions, earning championship titles.
Ms. Emamdoust was first arrested in 2019 for writing protest slogans on city walls and was released after several months.
She was detained again on May 31, 2020, spending two months in solitary confinement in Isfahan’s Dowlatabad Prison under interrogation before being transferred to the women’s ward of Dastgerd Prison.
The Isfahan Revolutionary Court later sentenced her to ten years in prison on charges of “assembly and collusion against national security” and “propaganda against the state.”
According to sources close to her family, Yalda was subjected to physical and psychological torture during her 2020 detention and was denied phone calls and family visits for months. Her husband, a member of the regime’s Intelligence Ministry, reportedly played a direct role in her arrest and handover to security agents at that time.
The enforced disappearance of Yalda Emamdoust represents yet another case in the growing pattern of human rights violations in Iran.
