Tehran, human rights previously sentenced to death, is freed
Tehran (AsiaNews / Agencies) - A human rights activist, Abdullah al Mansour, who had been sentenced to death, was released and has returned home to the Netherlands, being an Iranian Dutch citizen. His release took place on August 20 but his son only broke the news today.
Two other figures were released: the reformist
journalist Mehdi Mahmoudian, and blogger Hossein
Maleki Ronaghi (photo) who both supported
the Green Wave movement in 2009.
Abdullah al Mansour, 69, is a defender of
the rights of the Arab minority
in Iran. In 2007
he was sentenced to death for "terrorism",
but the sentence was later commuted to 15 years in prison. His family is amazed by
his early release.
Mansour was sentenced for his work in the majority Sunni and Arab western
province of Kuzestan, which
has long been pushing for greater autonomy. The human
rights organizations accuse the central government of suppressing the language and culture of the Iranian
Arabs, confiscating lands and killing activists. Tehran
fears that the Sunni
Arab minority could form an alliance
with neighboring countries (Kuwait,
Saudi Arabia, Qatar and now the Islamic
state) to attempt to disintegrate
Iran.
Mansour became a Dutch national in the
80s, after escaping from Iran.
He was arrested in Syria in 2006 and
extradited to Iran.
Analysts think that his early release is due to the influence of President Hassan Rouhani, who is distinguishing himself for his reformist character and dialogue both at home and in the international community.
Rouhani's
pressure to reform perhaps also contributed to the release of
Mehdi Mahmoudian and
Hossein Maleki Ronaghi.
The first, was released in late August,
at the end of his sentence. A member of
the main reformist party in Iran, the Islamic Iran Participation
Front, he was one of the most important journalists who continued to spread news of arrests
and torture of protestors against
the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009, which later merged into the 'Green
Wave movement before being violently suppressed.
Mahmoudian was arrested in September 2009 and sentenced to five years
in prison for "gatherings and collusion
against the regime". He
served his sentence in Rejaishahr prison in Karaj.
The blogger Hossein Ronaghi Maleki was
arrested after the 2009 demonstrations
and was released on September 3. It
is still unclear if his release
is on a permanent
or temporary basis. Maleki was
sentenced to 15 years in prison. He
was one of the 33 prisoners
in the 350 wing of
Evin prison (Tehran), who went on
hunger strike to protest against the
abuse of prisoners. Ronaghi
Maleki suffers from kidney problems and has
protested many times that he
never received adequate medical care.
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17/05/2006
18/02/2020 10:04
