New Restrictions and Prevention of In-Person Visits for Maryam Akbari Monfared: ‘My Husband Should Be Released’
Hassan Jafari, husband of Maryam Akbari Monfared who has been imprisoned since Ashura Day 1388 (2009), informed the Iran Human Rights Campaign in an interview about new restrictions and prevention of in-person visits with this political prisoner on Sunday. Mr. Jafari told the campaign that the new warden of Evin Prison, by imposing new restrictions, has made conditions more difficult for political prisoners and their families.
Gholamreza Ziayei, who was appointed as warden of Evin Prison in early Mordad of this year by order of the Tehran Province prisons director general, has played a significant role in increasing pressure and imposing unlawful restrictions on prisoners in this facility. Ziayei previously served as warden of Rajaei Shahr Prison in Karaj, which is known for poor conditions for inmates. He was also the warden of this detention facility in 1388 (2009) during the Kahrizak crimes.
Maryam Akbari Monfared was arrested two days after Ashura 1388, on the 8th of Dey of that year, and was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment on the charge of moharebeh (enmity against God) by Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court. Since her arrest in 1388, she has not received a single day of furlough for over a decade.
Mr. Jafari, husband of Maryam Akbari Monfared, told the campaign: “According to Islamic Penal Law and other laws of the Islamic Republic, my wife should be released, but not only are they not releasing her, she has not received even one hour of furlough in the past ten years, and now they are creating problems for in-person visits.”
He explained: “Ten years ago, they raided our home and took Maryam without her having done anything. They charged her with moharebeh and said 15 years imprisonment. According to Islamic Penal Law, which the parliament approved and announced in 1392, she should be released. According to this law, the charge of moharebeh brought against Maryam is no longer valid, but unfortunately, they did not act on it and kept her in prison with a charge and sentence that has been legally abolished. Then they said she should serve one-third of her sentence to become eligible for conditional release. She has been imprisoned for over ten years and more than two-thirds of her sentence have passed, but they even oppose conditional release. We went to the Supreme Court three times and pursued appeals and other legal avenues but reached no result.”
Maryam Akbari Monfared is deprived of furlough despite the Revolutionary Court demanding a bail of over one billion tomans from her family for this political prisoner’s furlough in 1392. Hassan Jafari, her husband, told the campaign: “Almost everyone who has a charge similar to my wife’s has received furlough, but they won’t let Maryam go. They demanded one billion and fifty million tomans in bail, we paid it, and they held the bail for 5 full years but did not grant furlough. They said the interrogator and the Ministry of Intelligence won’t allow it, and after 5 years we went to retrieve the documents because they were not ours and God’s servants who had provided bail for Maryam’s furlough needed their deeds.”
Mr. Jafari told the campaign: “My youngest daughter was three years old when they took Maryam. When she started elementary school, we said please bring her mother for just ten minutes so the child could see her mother on her first day of school – they refused. She went to middle school and they still refused, and that three-year-old child became thirteen years old. After much follow-up, we finally got a letter allowing my youngest daughter to have in-person visits with her mother every week. Now that Mr. Ziayei has come, he makes rules for himself. He doesn’t allow it. We even had visits every other week, now he has stopped them. They are harassing us. We really have a problem and they don’t even explain what our crime is. My wife whose charges have lost their legal basis – why is she in prison?”
According to Article 180 of the Prison Organization Regulations, “All convicts and accused persons are permitted to maintain contact with their relatives and acquaintances under full supervision and in accordance with regulations…” In other words, visits with family members and children are the right of all prisoners. According to this same regulation, depriving a prisoner of visits is only possible in two cases: first, when the judge handling the case, according to the note to Article 180, determines in writing that visiting the accused or corresponding with them would be contrary to the proper conduct of the case and declares it prohibited. In this case, visits with the convict or correspondence with them are only permitted during the period of prohibition with written permission from the competent judicial authorities.
The second case is deprivation of the right to visits as disciplinary punishment. According to Article 175 of the Prison Organization Regulations, the prison’s disciplinary council can deprive a prisoner of visits a maximum of three times, but deprivation of telephone contact as punishment is not provided for in the regulations.
Disruption of the continuous right of imprisoned parents to contact their children violates not only their rights but also their children’s rights. The imprisonment of both or one of the parents does not deprive them of the right to parenthood or their children of the right to have a mother and father.
According to her husband, Maryam Akbari Monfared was a 40-year-old housewife at the time of her arrest. Mr. Jafari had previously told the campaign: “Members of my wife’s family were executed in the 1960s, and her sister and brother are members of the Mujahedin who were at the Ashraf base in Iraq at that time, and my wife had spoken to them by phone a few times. That became her charge. I was present at my wife’s trial in Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court. My small child was in my arms and Judge Salwati told my wife you are killing your sister and brothers the same way. Then I remained and three daughters with their mother in prison. This is our situation, and if they don’t like us in this country, give us a piece of paper and let us leave this country and live elsewhere. My wife was taken from me and I remained with three daughters – one of my feet is the prosecutor’s office, one is prison, and one is work and the children.”
Reza Akbari Monfared, Maryam Akbari Monfared’s brother, was also imprisoned in Rajaei Shahr Prison from Dey 1391. He was sentenced to 5.5 years imprisonment on charges of assembly, conspiracy, and support for the People’s Mujahedin Organization, and was released from prison after completing his sentence.
On 26 Mehr 1395, Maryam Akbari Monfared issued an open letter from Evin Prison demanding justice and investigation into the execution of her family members in the 1960s. In this letter titled “What Happened to Me and My Family Over These Past Decades,” she wrote: “Considering that filing complaints in international forums is only possible after complaints have been filed with domestic bodies; and given the aforementioned evidence and arguments, I hereby request an investigation into the unlawful execution of my sister and brother and clarification of its details, including those responsible for their deaths, receipt of the indictment and other documents of their files, and criminal proceedings in accordance with applicable laws, particularly Article 34 of the Constitution which recognizes justice as the inalienable right of every individual.”
One of Ms. Akbari Monfared’s requests in this letter was to announce the burial site of her executed sister and brother. She wrote: “Considering that the location of their burial site has never been announced to the family, I request clarification of how they died and where they are buried.”
In this letter, Maryam Akbari Monfared explained about the executed members of her family and wrote: “Three brothers and one sister were executed in prison during the 1960s. My youngest brother, Abdolreza Akbari Monfared, was arrested in 1359 when he was a student and only 17 years old. His crime was distributing the Mujahid publication. He spent three full years in solitary cells of Gohardasht-Rajaei Shahr Prison, and despite being sentenced to three years imprisonment by the Tehran Revolutionary Court, he was kept in prison until 1367, and finally in Mordad of that year, he was executed with a large number of prisoners.”
Regarding her second executed family member, she wrote: “Alireza Akbari Monfared, my other brother, was arrested on 17 Shahrivar 1360 and executed in prison on 28 Shahrivar of the same year. His entire process of arrest, trial, and execution was carried out in 10 days.”
The third member of the Akbari Monfared family who was executed in prison is introduced in this letter as “Raghieh Akbari Monfared.” Maryam Akbari Monfared wrote in her letter demanding justice from prison about how her sister was executed: “During the Seventh Night ceremony of Alireza Akbari Monfared, authorities raided our home and arrested a number of guests, transferring them to Evin Prison and the Joint Committee. Among those arrested were my mother and my sister, Raghieh Akbari Monfared. My mother was released from prison after five months, but my sister, who had been sentenced to eight years imprisonment by the court, was executed in Mordad 1367 while in the final years of her sentence.”
In Maryam Akbari Monfared’s letter, the fourth member of her family who was killed in prison is also identified as “Gholamreza Akbari Monfared.” She has written: “Gholamreza Akbari Monfared, my other brother, was also arrested in 1362 and died under torture in 1364.”
Source: Iran Human Rights Campaign
