Prominent teachers' rights activist Hashem Khastar, who mysteriously disappeared October 23 in the city of Mashhad in northeast Iran, is being detained by the Islamic Republic’s Intelligence Ministry at a psychiatric hospital, his wife disclosed in an exclusive interview with Radio Farda’s Mahtab Vahidirad.

"Without clear charges, my husband has been detained by the Intelligence Ministry and, for unknown reasons, taken to a psychiatric hospital in Mashhad," said Khastar’s wife, Sediqeh Maleki, insisting that her husband is not suffering from any mental or physical illness.

Khastar, a former teacher at the Agriculture Technical High School in Mashhad and an agricultural engineer, is the Head of the Mashhad Teachers Union.

He went missing October 23, and Maleki says his cellphone was turned off and his car left parked outside his home in Golbahar Park.

Two days later, Khastar's relatives received a call from an unknown telephone number and were informed he had been hospitalized for a psychiatric disorder at a hospital in Mashhad, where they were allowed to visit him.