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Religious Activists Barred From Leaving Iran


Alireza Rajaee
Alireza Rajaee
Iranian authorities have imposed a travel ban on several prominent religious activists, RFE/RL's Radio Farda reports.

Paris-based religious activist Morteza Kazemian told RFE/RL on September 19 that Mohammad Maleki, Habibollah Peyman, Mohammad Bastenegar, Mohammad Mohammadi Ardehali, Saeed Madani, and Alireza Rajaee have been notified by the prosecutor's office at Tehran's Evin prison that they may not leave the country.

Rajaee is currently being held in Ward 350 at Evin prison.

Kazemian said the activists are among 15 who were arrested in 2000 and held in solitary confinement for months before a revolutionary court decided to file cases against them.

One of the 15, Ezatollah Sahabi, spent 15 months in solitary confinement and a prison hospital and Peyman was kept in solitary confinement for about a year before an investigation into their cases was opened.

Of the 15, Sahabi and Hoda Saber have since died.

Sahabi, who was the head of the National-Religious Coalition, died on May 31 at the age of 81. His daughter, Haleh, who was a women's rights activist, died from a heart attack after a scuffle with security forces at his funeral the following day.

Saber, a religious activist and journalist, died in Evin prison on June 12 after a 10-day hunger strike to protest Haleh Sahabi's death.

Read more in Persian here
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