In order to ramp up pressure on women political prisoners, the Iranian regime’s judiciary has summoned and filed new cases against them.
Political prisoner Maryam Akbari Monfared was orally summoned to the Evin Courthouse on Wednesday, June 10, 2020. However, she refused to turn out for the hearing.
She stated that the reason for her refusal to appear in court was that she had not received a written notice from the court and that she had been denied access to a lawyer. The new charge levelled against Maryam Akbari is her chanting slogans on the night of February 11, 2020, the anniversary of the 1979 Iranian Revolution which toppled the Shah.
Maryam Akbari Monfared, 45, with three daughters, was arrested in late December 2009, after she contacted her siblings who are members of the opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). She was arrested and charged with Moharebeh or waging war on God through collaboration with the PMOI.
Maryam Akbari was essentially deprived of access to legal counsel and was sentenced to 15 years in prison in a 5-minute trial. She is serving her 11th year in Evin Prison without even a day off.
Also, on Saturday night, June 6, 2020, the Evin Prison authorities informed Atena Daemi that she had been summoned to the Evin Courthouse on the morning of June 7.
Atena Daemi appeared in court presuming that the hearing was related to her previous case. But she realized upon arrival that this was a new case and she was accused of disrupting the prison’s order by chanting slogans on the night of February 11, 2020.
Atena Daemi denied the allegations during her interrogations.
Earlier, on May 13, 2020, another hearing had held in the Revolutionary Court of Tehran dealing with other charges levelled against this political prisoner.
Political prisoner Atena Daemi, a civil activist defending children’s rights, was arrested on October 21, 2014. She was sentenced to 14 years in prison on March 14, 2015, for her peaceful civil activities, on charges of “propaganda against the state”, “association and collusion against national security”, “insulting the leader”, and “hiding the evidence of crime.” Atena Daemi was freed on February 15, 2016, after serving 16 months and her sentence was subsequently decreased to 7 years. But she was violently re-arrested on November 26, 2016 and taken to Evin Prison to serve her sentence.
