Iranian media announced the release of several activists and journalists from Evin prison, who came out singing.
Source AFP
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PSeveral Iranian activists held in Evin prison have been released, according to foreign-based media supporting the protesters. The latter are based on videos of released prisoners chanting slogans in front of the prison. Among them are Saba Kordafshari, detained since 2019 while campaigning against wearing the hijab, and photographer Alieh Motalebzadeh, whose last stay in prison began last April. After their release, they chanted the movement’s slogan “Woman, life, freedom”, or “Down with the oppressors in the world”, according to a video posted by Ms. Motalebzadeh on her Twitter account.
“They have played a vital role in the movement for women’s rights and have been unjustly detained in recent years,” said the group Front Line Defenders (“Front Line Defenders”). “Their place is really at the heart of the movement.” The other detainees released are Fariba Asadi, Parastoo Moini, Zahra Safaei, Gelareh Abbasi and Sahereh Hossein, activists, some of whom have already spent several years in prison.
“Hypocritical grace”?
Iranian authorities have already released this week Armita Abbasi, 20, who was tried in January after being arrested in October 2022 during protests in the city of Karaj, near Tehran. In November, US broadcaster CNN, citing leaks and an unnamed medical source, claimed she had been admitted to hospital after being raped in custody. The authorities denied it. After her release, she thanked her supporters in a video on Instagram.
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No formal link was made between these releases and the announcement by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s office that he had agreed to pardon a significant number of prisoners. Human rights defenders had called for the greatest caution, citing the continued arrests and continued detention of many activists. “Khamenei’s hypocritical grace does not change anything”, denounced Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR) based in Norway, referring to “propaganda”.
Thousands of people have been arrested for their alleged involvement in the protest movement sparked by the death on September 16 of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd arrested for violating the very strict dress code imposed on Iranian women.
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