Iran's prominent reformist detainees released on bail

Mohammad Atrianfar

The detained political prisoners of the post-election turmoil in Iran are now being released on exorbitant bails with the shadow of heavy prison sentences in the appeals court, hanging over their heads.

Many of the prominent faces that are being released were presented in the mass trials of post-election detainees where they each went through a ritual of recanting their allegations of fraud in the presidential elections that claimed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the winner, as well as implicating themselves in a so-called velvet revolution to topple the government. Opposition forces along with human rights groups in Iran and abroad condemned the trials as Stalinesque show trials and maintained the “confessions” were all coerced.

Today Mohammad Atrianfar, member of the reformist party, the Executives of Construction was released on a bail of 500 million toumans ($500,000) according to ISNA. Atrianfar has been sentenced to six years in prison but the sentence can be appealed.

The pro-government website, Parcham also reported the imminent release of Behzad Nabavi on bail. Behzad Nabavi is also a senior member of the reformist group, Mujahedin of Islamic Revolution Organization.

Mr. Atrianfar also participated in a television program along with Saeed Hajjarian and Saeed Shariati where the prominent reform figures criticized the reform movement and the activities of its leaders.

Mohammad Ali Abtahi, former vice-president was released on Sunday with another exorbitant bail and a preliminary six-year prison sentence.

Saeed Shariati, Ali Tajernia, Mohammad Ghouchani and Hengameh Shahidi are amongst the other political activists and journalists that have been released on bail in recent weeks.

Many of the political detainees of the recent events in Iran are still in prison.

Yesterday, the Islamic Iran Participation Front, the reformist party that has had numerous of its members arrested in the past months, condemned the sentences handed to these political activists and cautioned the establishment that this mode of operation will lead to the “fall and dismantling” of the Islamic Republic.