Iran releases a number of political prisoners

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.

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.