Facing a court case, Hamid Baghaei, the vice president under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has taken refuge in a holy shrine in Iran, a centuries-old form of protest undertaken by those seeking to escape oppression at the hands of rulers. On Oct. 15, Baghaei, along with former Ahmadinejad officials Ali Akbar Javanfekr and Habibollah Joz-Khorasani, took refuge at the Shah Abdol-Azim shrine in the historic city of Rey, just outside of Tehran.

A statement by the three individuals said there is “extreme judicial pressure to issue oppressive sentences” against them. The statement said the legal cases against them are based on “untrue and baseless accusations.” They said they faced “long periods of solitary confinement and hundreds of hours of intensive interrogations to acquire false confessions.”

Explaining why the three took refuge at the Shah Abdol-Azim shrine, the statement said that “legal and reasonable pursuits and repeated legal protests until now have been fruitless.” The statement accused the judiciary of taking “illegal actions” and of making predetermined decisions. The trio hopes that their sit-in at the shrine “will result in an awakening and awareness for those who feel they have absolute power,” meaning the judiciary.

Among the three, Baghaei is the most well-known and is the closest confidant of Ahmadinejad. Baghaei tried to run in the 2017 presidential election, but the Guardian Council rejected his candidacy. Baghaei was first arrested in June 2015, though the charges against him were never disclosed. He was arrested again in July of this year and spent 18 days in prison. It is believed that Baghaei is likely facing some form of corruption charges.