On Saturday, October 30, political prisoner Saeed Sangar was released on parole from Urmia Prison.
According to HRANA, the news agency of Human Rights Activists, Sangar’s release comes after 21 years of imprisonment.
On August 31, 2000, Sangar was arrested. However, in his legal case, October 29 of that year has been wrongly recorded as the arrest date.
On November 18, 2000, the Revolutionary Court of Sanandaj, headed by judge Fatemi, sentenced him to death on the charge of “enmity against God (Moharebeh) through membership in The People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran”. Following this conviction, Sangar was transferred from the detention center of the ministry of intelligence in Sanandaj to ward 209 of Evin Prison in Tehran, where he was held in solitary confinement cells until 2003. In the fall of 2003, the appellate court changed the verdict to life imprisonment and sent him to Urmia Prison.
Years later, on December 23, 2016, the executive branch No. 4 of the Department of Justice in Sanandaj reduced the verdict to 18 years imprisonment.
In 2017, a new case was opened against him for the charge of “propaganda against the regime” of which, however, he was later acquitted.
Despite that by December of 2020, not only he had served out two years more than his 18-years sentence, he was sentenced again to 11 months imprisonment sentence on the charge of ” propaganda against the regime and in favor of dissident groups against the regime”. This sentence was reduced to eight months, which led to his final release this Saturday, October 30.
