TEHRAN: Iranian Nobel winner Shirin Ebadi said today intelligence agents have arrested her sister as the regime stepped up its crackdown on dissent, a statement carried on an opposition website said.

“My sister Dr Nooshin Ebadi was arrested at 9 pm (1630 GMT) on December 28 by four intelligence agents at her home and sent to prison,” Ebadi said in a statement carried by the Rahesabz website.

“I am not aware of the place of her detention or the reason for her arrest,” she said, describing her sister as a professor of medicine.

Ebadi, who left Iran a day before the June 12 poll, has been urging the international community to act against what she sees as human rights violations by the Islamic regime since the election.

She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her legal work championing human rights in Iran.

Prominent reformist journalist Mashallah Shamsolvaezin was arrested at his home on Tuesday morning, Rahesabz said.

Another journalist Mohammad Javad Saberi was detained on Sunday near Tehran university on Enghelab street, where protesters clashed with security forces. Tehran prosecutor confirmed today the arrest of an Iran-based reporter working for Dubai TV. Reza al-Basha, a 27-year-old Syrian, was arrested in Tehran during opposition protests, a colleague told AFP.