- Prison
- Evin
- Status
- Imprisoned
Nafas dar Ghafas: Maryam Akbari Monfared, born in 1975, is a human rights activist and political prisoner currently serving the eleventh year of her imprisonment in Evin prison. Two of her brothers were executed in 1981 and 1984 on charges of “association with and membership in the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK)” by Revolutionary Courts. Her younger brother and another sister were also executed in 1988, during the wave of executions of political prisoners that summer.
She was arrested at her home following the Ashura protests of 30 December 2009, and on 1 June 2010 was sentenced by Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court, presided over by Salavati, to 15 years’ discretionary imprisonment on the charge of moharebeh through support for the MEK — without access to a lawyer — a charge she has never accepted. Her initial sentence was upheld on appeal. Throughout these years she has been deprived of adequate medical care while suffering from thyroid disease and rheumatoid arthritis.
In September 2010 she was exiled to Rajai Shahr prison in Karaj, and in 2011 was transferred, with other female political prisoners, to Qarchak Varamin prison. After nearly three weeks, following protests by human rights bodies and prisoners’ families, she and eight other political prisoners were moved to Evin prison.
In autumn 2016 she filed a complaint with the Tehran prosecutor demanding an investigation into the details of her siblings’ executions. The judicial authorities not only failed to address it but threatened her and cut off her access to essential treatment.
In early 2017 she filed a complaint with the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances, asking it to question the Islamic Republic about the fate of her brother and sister. The Working Group subsequently recognized Roghayeh and Abdolreza Akbari Monfared as victims of “enforced disappearance” and asked the Islamic Republic to explain their fate.
After filing her complaint on 17 October 2016 about the 1988 executions of her family members, she was, in a retaliatory move by the Tehran prosecutor, deprived of medical services and threatened with a 3-year increase to her sentence and exile to a prison in Sistan and Baluchestan.
In spring 2019, Amnesty International called for her immediate release and urged the Iranian authorities to end the “harassment” and “torture” of her and her family.
She has been denied the right to leave for 11 years since 2009, even though in 2013 the Revolutionary Court took a bail of 1.15 billion tomans from her family for her leave; at the last moment, when her children were waiting for her at home, they were told the leave had been cancelled because a letter had come from the Minister of Intelligence saying she must not be given leave.
