Reports from the Central Prison of Semnan say that the clerical regime’s Intelligence Ministry has mounted pressure on Maryam Akbari Monfared.
The Intelligence Ministry sent Mrs. Akbari Monfared to exile in Semnan Prison on March 9, 2021. They have detained her in a 4 square-meter room among common criminals, mostly addicts. The ministry directly follows up her case and has forbidden Semnan Prison authorities from granting any of her requests.
In their most recent measures to mount pressure on Maryam Akbari Monfared, the Intelligence Ministry does not allow her to go out of her cell for fresh air. They have also warned other inmates against talking to her.
The Ministry has also cut down Maryam’s visitation time with her family who travel a long distance from Tehran to see her.
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 has very limited time to make her daily calls from the prison’s Security Office and in the presence of a prison guard.
Her detention in the general ward violates the principle of separation of crimes.
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.
