Twitter storm in support of a political prisoner; Maryam Akbari Monfared has not taken leave in the past 12 years

As political prisoner Maryam Akbari Monfared entered her 13th year in prison, a group of Iranian users launched a Twitter storm in support of her.

Maryam Akbari Monfared was arrested in January 2009 and sentenced to 15 years in prison by Judge Salavati in the Islamic Revolutionary Court in June 2008.

Ms. Akbari Monfared, whose three brothers and one sister, Abdolreza Akbari Monfared, Alireza Akbari Monfared, Gholamreza Akbari Monfared, and Roqiyeh Akbari Monfared, were executed in 1988, is accused of “supporting the People’s Mojahedin Organization.” However, according to her husband, Hassan Jafari, she was “a housewife and mother of three little girls” and her only contact with the organization was “a few phone calls with her siblings in Camp Ashraf in Iraq.”

After the release of an audio file by Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri in the summer of 2016 regarding his meeting with members of the "Death Commission" in 1988, Maryam Akbari Monfared from Evin Prison filed an official complaint with the Tehran Prosecutor's Office, demanding an investigation into the details of the execution of her siblings and the announcement of their burial locations.

Following this complaint, Ms. Akbari Monfared was threatened by the Ministry of Intelligence to stop pursuing the executions of 1967. She was exiled to Semnan Prison on March 9, 2020.

During the Twitter storm of support for Maryam Akbari Monfared, well-known Iranian journalist Zhila Baniyaghoub called on users to write about this political prisoner, referring to her twelve years in prison without a single day off.

The Human Rights Campaign in Iran, on its Twitter account, called the "15-year prison sentence" for this female political prisoner "illegal on charges of seeking justice" and wrote: "She is the mother of three daughters, and her 12-year deprivation of her right to leave is inhumane and illegal. But she never remained silent in the face of the government that took away her three brothers and a sister and did not give up her right to seek justice."

Hassan Nayeb Hashem, a human rights activist, published a photo of Ms. Akbari Monfared alongside her young and teenage daughters, writing that these girls "have seen their mother only in prison for the past 12 years, and are now thriving teenagers and young adults. The prison guards have also deprived her of a short leave during these years."

Former political prisoner Zia Nabavi also wrote: "Being imprisoned for twelve years without a single day off is not something you can tweet about and then convince yourself you actually said something about! Perhaps the only reason to write is that you think it's better than saying nothing."

Maryam Shafipour, who had previously shared a cell with Ms. Akbari Monfared in Iran, wrote that perhaps if it weren't for her, "prison would not have been bearable for many of us. Hope and belief in justice and advocacy kept Maryam's heart bright and her beautiful smile warm. Maryam's daughters were deprived of having such a mother for 12 years. No words can describe all this filth."

Source: Voice of America