Iranian rights activist Maryam Akbari Monfared, who has spent 13 years in prison for protesting the execution of her two siblings, was reportedly beaten by prison officials after an argument broke out over her children being forced to wear a hijab.
Iran Human Rights quoted a source on August 24 as saying a prison official "grabbed her [Monfared] by the throat and tried to strangle her while using profanity" after they refused to let her two daughters visit unless they wore a Chador hijab.
The prison head eventually intervened and Monfared was allowed to meet with her family.
Monfared was arrested on December 2009 and was forcibly disappeared for five months.
She was sentenced to 15 years in prison by the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran in May 2010, which condemned her for "acting against national security" and "enmity against God."
Hassan Jafari, Monfared's husband, told RFE/RL's Radio Farda that a judge convicted his wife in a four-minute trial because of her family, who were members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO). Three of her siblings were executed by the state in 1988 while a fourth died while being tortured in 1985.
Monfared has been in prison since her conviction without being granted any leave. She reportedly has been suffering health problems.
In 2015, after the release of audio from Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri, then the country's deputy leader, regarding the mass killing of prisoners, including her siblings, Monfared filed a lawsuit with the Tehran Prosecutor's Office.
Jila Bani Yaqoub, a journalist who was in the women's ward of Evin prison with Monfared, said in an interview with Radio Farda that after Monfared's complaint and lawsuit, prison officials "specifically told her that they will not let her go on leave, and they have stuck to this."