Alireza Alinezad, Brother of Journalist Masih Alinezad, Released on Furlough After 595 Days of Detention
Alireza Alinezad, brother of independent journalist and Tablet program host Masih Alinezad at Voice of America, has been released on furlough for the first time after 595 days of detention.
Saeed Dehghan, the defense lawyer for Alireza Alinezad, confirmed the news on Thursday, May 13, in a post on his Twitter account, stating that this five-day furlough could lead to conditional release for Mr. Alinezad, and this legal right to conditional release will take effect from June 2.
Mr. Alinezad has been in detention since October 2, 2019. According to available information, Branch 36 of Tehran’s Court of Appeal confirmed without regard to objections raised by Mr. Alinezad’s defense lawyers an eight-year prison sentence issued by Branch 28 of Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Court. In late February of last year, his lawyers’ request for retrial was also rejected.
Earlier, with the beginning of the Persian year 1400, Amnesty International, while calling for Alireza Alinezad’s immediate and unconditional release, stated that the unjust detention of Masih Alinezad’s brother, a journalist and women’s rights advocate, is part of Iran’s campaign of harassment and intimidation against the families of civil and political activists to force them into silence and cease their legitimate activities.
Ms. Alinezad had previously announced that two years of the eight-year sentence imposed on her brother was for insulting the Supreme Leader, resulting from a statement he made saying that whenever Khamenei disassociates himself from his state media, he would also disown his sister.
On the other hand, this independent journalist, who says the Islamic Republic took her brother as a “hostage to silence and punish” her, had previously stated in an interview with Voice of America: “The IRGC had a plan with my sister’s family to lure me to Turkey under the pretext of visiting my mother and kidnap me there. My brother exposed this plan and publicly wrote to me on Instagram: don’t go to Turkey. Now they have convicted my brother for exposing the IRGC’s conspiracy.”
According to available information, officials from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence arrested Ali Alinezad on October 2, 2019, by “raiding” his home.
This is not the first time family members of this independent journalist and founder of the “White Wednesdays” campaign against mandatory hijab have been pressured by Islamic Republic authorities. In late March of last year, Ms. Alinezad told Voice of America that her mother was summoned by security police and warned that she would be held accountable for “phone contact with people outside the country.”
Source: Voice of America
