Maryam Akbari Monfared under maximum pressure 70 days after exile
Political prisoner Maryam Akbari Monfared is under maximum pressure by the Ministry of Intelligence, 70 days after her exile to the Central Prison of Semnan.
Her case is being followed up directly by the Intelligence Ministry. No one, even the assistant prosecutor who oversees the cases of political prisoners, is not allowed to interfere in Maryam Akbari’s case. The Intelligence Ministry does not allow granting any of her requests.
Political prisoner Maryam Akbari Monfared is deprived of the most fundamental rights of a prisoner, including having access to newspapers, medical treatment and prison leave.
Mrs. Akbari Monfared very limited time to make her daily calls which are done in the prison’s Security Office and in the presence of a prison guard.
Maryam Akbari Monfared was violently removed from Evin Prison and exiled to the Central Prison of Semnan on March 9, 2021. She is presently detained in the general ward of the Semnan Prison, where she does not have access to her personal belongings.
Her detention in the general ward is in violation of the principle of separation of crimes.
The sanitary conditions in the general ward of the Prison of Semnan are deplorable. Despite widespread outbreak of the coronavirus in prisons, everyone uses the same slippers. Prison authorities do not provide detergents or disinfectants to the inmates.
Maryam Akbari Monfared has three daughters and is serving her 12th year in prison. She was arrested on December 31, 2009, after the tremendous uprising on December 27 that year which shook the pillars of the regime. In June 2010, the Revolutionary Court of Tehran handed down a 15-year prison sentence for Moharebeh on the alleged charge of “membership in the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran,” a charge which Mrs. Akbari has never accepted. She has been in prison without a single day of leave since the day she was detained. She suffers from Thyroid malfunction and joint rheumatism.
Maryam Akbari’s sister and brother were executed during the massacre of political prisoners in summer 1988. Another two of her brothers were executed during the mass executions in the early 1980s.
