An academic who holds dual American and Iranian citizenship has become the first American to be detained since a surge of unrest in Iran followed the disputed June 12 presidential election, the Associated Press and Time reported.

Kian Tajbakhsh, a prominent social scientist and urban planner who has served as an expert consultant to several Iranian government organizations and taught urban sociology at Allameh Tabataba’i University, in Tehran, was arrested at his home in Tehran late on Thursday and is being held at an undisclosed location, the AP reported.

Mr. Tajbakhsh was one of three Iranian-American scholars arrested in Iran in 2007 and spent four months in prison on charges of trying to undermine national security and foment a soft revolution through his work with the Soros foundations’ Open Society Institute. According to the AP, Mr. Tajbakhsh’s family “says he ended his association with the Open Society Institute after his earlier imprisonment.”

During his 2007 detention, Mr. Tajbakhsh was held at Tehran’s notorious Evin prison and was not allowed access to a lawyer. He was released in September 2007 after his family posted bail of more than $100,000.

According to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, with his latest arrest, Mr. Tajbakhsh “joins more than 240 other prominent Iranian lawyers, activists, journalists, professors, human-rights defenders, and students who have been arrested without warrants at their homes or places of work by unidentified agents and taken to undisclosed locations.” —Aisha Labi