A group of activists has called for the immediate release of Maryam Akbari Monfared, a mother who has not seen her children since she was imprisoned in 2010 for her support of an exiled opposition group and is one of the longest-serving political prisoners in Iran, after new charges were brought against her.
In a statement signed by prominent figures including Jila Baniyaghoob, Hassan Yousefi Eshkevari, Abdullah Naseri Taheri, Shiva Nazar Ahari, Ghoncheh Ghavami, and Mahdieh Golro, the group condemned the new charges and Monfared's original conviction as clear evidence of the unlawful conduct of Iran's security agencies and judicial system.
Monfared, who is serving out the final months of her 15-year sentence, has been hit with six new charges, which could potentially delay her release.
Monfared has not been granted even a day of release from prison since December 2009. She was sentenced to 15 years in prison by the Islamic Revolutionary Court on charges of "acting against national security" and was exiled to Semnan prison from March 2020.
The signatories of the statement called the treatment of Monfared "unjust."
Monfared was arrested in December 2009 and forcibly disappeared for five months.
She was sentenced 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 is reportedly suffering from health problems.
In 2015, after the release of an audio recording where Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri, then the country's deputy leader, talked about the mass killing of prisoners, Monfared filed a lawsuit with the Tehran Prosecutor's Office.
Jila Baniyaghoob, 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 release her on leave, and they have stuck to this."