AFP: Tehran has freed from jail an aide to Nobel peace winner Shirin Ebadi who was arrested before the anniversary of Iran’s disputed 2009 presidential election, an opposition website reported Friday.
TEHRAN (AFP) — Tehran has freed from jail an aide to Nobel peace winner Shirin Ebadi who was arrested before the anniversary of Iran’s disputed 2009 presidential election, an opposition website reported Friday.
“I spoke to her just now. She told me she is out of the (prison) gate,” Kaleme.com, the website of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, quoted Narges Mohammadi’s husband Taghi Rahmani as saying.
Narges Mohammadi’s arrest had been reported by the Defenders of Human Rights Center, which is chaired by Ebadi, on June 11, a day before the first anniversary of the presidential poll.
Mohammadi, a mother of two, is a close aide to Ebadi and is the spokeswoman of the rights group, which is a vocal critic of the Iranian regime’s treatment of dissidents and regularly reports on rights “abuses.”
Ebadi left Iran on the eve of the June 12, 2009 poll, which gave President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term amid widespread allegations by his opponents of fraud.
That sparked street protests, which rocked the Islamic republic for several months.
Security forces cracked down heavily, with dozens of protesters killed, hundreds arrested and scores of prominent reformists, journalists and rights campaigners put on trial — with many receiving stiff jail sentences.
