WASHINGTON – A leading Iranian writer and opposition figure went missing after Tehran’s chief prosecutor issued a warrant for his arrest.

An associate of Akbar Ganji, Bijan Mehr, yesterday told The New York Sun that Mr. Ganji evaded Iranian authorities Tuesday evening and was in hiding. His wife, however, told the BBC that he may have been abducted by police after a night out with friends on Tuesday evening from which he did not return.

An Iranian news agency, Fars, quoted Tehran’s chief prosecutor, Saeed Mortazavi, as saying, “Bailiffs went to Ganji’s house with the arrest warrant, but he was not home and he has still not returned and has gone into hiding.” Mr. Ganji has been particularly critical of Mr. Mortazavi and has urged political leaders to remove him from his post.

Mr. Ganji, who suffers from asthma, was released from prison on May 30 to seek medical treatment. As a free man, he quickly resumed his anti-regime activities. In an interview with Rooz Online, he called on opponents of the mullahs to boycott the elections scheduled for June 17. The statement from the well-known author was a pointed jab at the supreme leader, who in recent days has asked his followers to make a strong showing at the polls next week to boost Iran’s position in negotiations over its nuclear program with Europe.

In the Rooz interview, Mr. Ganji seemed aware that his words would attract attention from authorities – notably his characterization of the government of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as a “personal dictatorship.”

When Mr. Ganji was asked how he would feel if forced to return to prison, he replied, “I know that saying this in Iran means playing with my life. I have chosen this with the knowledge and will accept the consequence.”

While Mr. Ganji has been associated with the reformist movement of President Khatami, he has in recent years called for a more radical opposition movement. Last year from prison, Mr. Ganji was one of the original organizers of the movement for a constitutional referendum in the country.

In 1999, Mr. Ganji wrote “The Red Eminence,” an expose in which he pins a series of 1998 killings of leading Iranian intellectuals on a leading presidential candidate and a former president, Hashemi Rafsanjani. The book earned him a prison sentence on charges of lying and creating propaganda against the regime.

An Iranian human rights activist, Ladan Boroumand, yesterday in an interview lauded Mr. Akbar’s sincerity. “He is not afraid to say the Islamists were wrong. Other reformers have cast their criticism of the regime in terms of how the revolution went astray. But Ganji criticizes the 1979 revolution now.”

The deputy Middle East director for Human Rights Watch, Joe Stork, yesterday said in a statement, “The Judiciary’s decision to extend Akbar Ganji’s medical leave apparently carries little weight. Chief Prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi has shown once again that he is calling the shots in the judiciary and is willing to go to any lengths to silence his critics.”

The latest crackdown from the mullahs comes as leaders of the Iranian opposition both inside and outside the country are planning public protests of the elections scheduled for next Friday. The founder and president of the Alliance of Iranian Women, Manda Zand Ervin, yesterday told The New York Sun that a sit-in is scheduled for Sunday in front of the University of Tehran, to be organized by a popular poet, Simin Behbahani.

Mr. Mehr said that student organizers from an umbrella group for campus activists, Tahkim Vahdat, have staged protests on behalf of Mr. Ganji in front of his home. Student groups are also planning hunger strikes to coincide with the final week of the elections.

Today, Ms. Zand Ervin will testify in the first hearing focusing on Iran before a Cold War committee that monitored human rights in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the Helsinki Commission. She said the chairman of the commission, Senator Brownback, a Republican from Kansas, “told me to give a picture of what is going on in Iran. So I am going to talk about how teachers, young students, bus drivers are doing small things in protest. There is not a huge high-profile uprising yet, but every day there are smaller uprisings.”

The son of the late shah and former crown prince of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, announced yesterday that he would conduct a hunger strike of his own from Fairfax, Va., at the request of political prisoners in Iran. “Solidarity with political prisoners of Iran and support for the legitimate quest for freedom, human rights, and economic opportunity in Iran transcends all political boundaries and ideologies,” he said in a statement.