Protest Over Continued Detention of Keyvan Samimi, National-Religious Activist

A group of political, social and human rights activists have protested the detention of Keyvan Samimi in a statement. This national-religious activist has remained in detention since the first day of May to the present.

Keyvan Samimi Behbahani is a recognized political activist and editor-in-chief of the Iran Tomorrow magazine, who was arrested during gatherings on the first of May and continues to remain in detention.

A group of political, social and human rights activists have protested the continued detention of Keyvan Samimi in a statement and called for his immediate release. The text of the statement was published on the Kalemat website.

The statement reads: “On this year’s International Workers’ Day, a group of labor activists and their social supporters gathered in front of the parliament, which resulted in the arrest of many of them.”

The statement said: “The right to protest assembly is not recognized contrary to the explicit text of the constitution, and every time professional and civil activists, in the course of their legitimate efforts, end up in prison instead of accountability and justice being served, and they are punished and sentenced to imprisonment for demanding their rights.”

The signatories of the statement expressed doubt about the effectiveness of their protest letter and said: “Based on experience, our request for the freedom of Samimi and many other political, professional and civil activists, including teachers and labor activists, will probably not be successful as always, but based on our moral and social responsibility, we insist on the necessity of freeing Keyvan Samimi and other oppressed prisoners.”

The letter was signed by 27 political activists, including: Hashem Aghajari, Alireza Beheshti, Mostafa Tajzadeh, Mohammad Toosli, Alireza Rajayi, Abdolfattah Soltani, Ehsan Shariatmadari, Abolfazl Qadiani, Fatemeh Govaraei and others.

Previously, some workers and teachers who were arrested during the May Day gatherings have been released either by paying bail or without it, but a number of detainees remain in custody.

Source: DW