Reports: Iran arrests German for photographing oil facility

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Semiofficial Iranian news agencies are reporting that a German national has been arrested in Iran after photographing an oil facility. The Tasnim news agency and the Student News Network, both close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, reported on Tuesday that the individual was taking photographs at the Omidiyeh oil facility in the southwestern Khuzestan province. Iran’s security forces have been on high alert amid four months of anti-government protests sparked by the death of a 22-year-old woman who was being held by the morality police for allegedly violating the country’s strict Islamic dress code. The protests quickly escalated into calls for the overthrow of the theocracy. Iran blames the protests on foreigners, without providing evidence.