HRANA News Agency – Although Maryam Akbari Monfared is eligible to use the Article 134 of the Penal Code, and despite the retrial of the case of this political prisoner, the Supreme Court has upheld the court verdict against Maryam Akbari Monfared, again, before proceedings and submission of her defense statement and the introduction of her attorney.
According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA), while the Article 134 of the Penal Code applies to Maryam Akbari Monfared, security and judicial authorities deny to apply this article on her case and after her rehearing, Branch 38 of the Supreme Court has confirmed her sentence, before the submission of the defense statement and before the introduction of her solicitor by the family of this political prisoner.
According to this report, on the situation of being imprisoned for six years, the family of Maryam Akbari Monfared has requested for retrial and her case was to turned in to Mr. Fatemi, head of Branch 38 of the Supreme Court and this branch issued its decision, before the introduction of her lawyer and submission defense bill, and sent the verdict to be implemented.
Also, despite the adoption of Article 134 of the Penal Code the judicial and security institutions deny applying this Article to this political prisoner. In case of applying this Article, Maryam Akbari Monfared’s sentence would be commuted to four years and she would be released immediately.
Her husband confirmed this news and said; earlier, for two years he had given one billion and one hundred and fifty million Tomans as the bail for just one day leave for his wife, but it was not possible to have a leave even for one day and Maryam Akbari Monfared has past six years imprisonment without leave.
Maryam Akbari Monfared suffers from many illnesses, such as thyroid disease and the treatments are in the most minimal status.
Maryam Akbari Monfared was arrested in January 2010, after the events of Ashura, 2009, and was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment on 1st June 2010 by Judge Salvati, judge of Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court. This political prisoner’s charge is combat through membership in the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, the charge which she has repeatedly denied.
Akbari Monfared who was serving her sentence in Rajai Shahr, in May 2011, along with 8 female prisoners, was transferred to the Gharchak prison in Varamin. She then wrote numerous letters to protest against the prison conditions to clerics, authorities and Ahmad Shahid, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, and then she was transferred to the women’s ward in Evin prison and until today, she is enduring her sentence, there.
Two brothers of Maryam Akbari Monfared were executed in 1981 and 1984 by the Revolutionary Courts in Iran, on charges of holding connection and membership in the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran. Her younger brother and her sister were executed in 1988 during the wave of executions of political prisoners in the summer of that year.
Earlier, in a letter to Ahmad Shahid, Akbari Monfared quoted what judge Salvati had told her: “You are paying for your sister and brothers.”
