Source: Radio Zamaneh
Iranian reformist websites report that several post-election detainees who were arrested in the wave of arrests before February 11 events in Iran, were released last night.
For Iranian Political Prisoners
Omid Mehregan, author, translator and journalist
was released after two weeks in Evin Prison. Ardavan Tarakemeh, film student and
cinema critic was released on a 30-million-touman ($30,000) bail. He was
arrested over three weeks ago at the home of Mahin Fahimi, a member of Mourning
Mothers, a group founded by the mothers of post-elections victims.
Orouj Ali-Mohammadi, former governor of Tabriz, arrested in the threshold of
February 11 protests, was also released on bail.
The authorities released Safoura Tofangchi while keeping her two daughters and
her husband in prison. Mohammad Dardkeshan, a political activist with ties to
the late dissident cleric, Ayatollah Montazeri was also released after two
months in prison. He has been arrested six times in the past 20 years in
connection with his political activism in Esfahan.
Yesterday fifty other detainees were released some of them on heavy bails or
temporary leave. In the past eight months over five thousand people have been
arrested because of protests against the alleged fraud in the June presidential
elections that returned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power. Reportedly prisons have
become over capacity and fail to provide adequate conditions for prisoners.
Head of Islamic Iran Participation Front's communications, Hosein Nourinejad,
who was sentenced to three years in prison yesterday after over five months in
detention, has informed his family that "there isn't enough space to sleep in
prison so inmates mostly sleep sitting down."
Detained journalist, Bahman Ahmadi Amouyi who has also been in prison since last
summer, has also informed his wife that he is cramped in a small cell with forty
other inmates and does not even have room to stretch his feet.
Human rights groups have repeatedly expressed grave concerns over the conditions
of political prisoners, and opposition leaders have consistently listed
"unconditional release of all political prisoners" as one of the main steps
toward remedying the political crisis which has gripped the country since the
June presidential elections.
... Payvand News - 02/19/10 ... --