CHICAGO: Leaders of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) called on the UN to intervene and release two women whose families have been the targets of violence and death by the Iranian regime.
According to the NCRI, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRG) forcibly removed political prisoner Maryam Akbari Monfared from the women’s ward of Evin Prison, where she has been for the past 12 years, and transferred her to the Semnan Prison.
Maryam Rajavi, the NCRI President-elect, said that despite protests from other prisoners, IRG and prison guards physically dragged Akbari Monfared from her cell.
Rajavi said that Iran’s clerical regime has already executed three of Akbari Monfared’s brothers and a sister. Alireza Akbari, a member of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), was executed in 1981. Gholamreza Akbari, also a member of MEK, was murdered under torture in 1985. MEK members Abdulreza and Roghiyeh Akbari were executed during the 1988 massacre.
Akbari Monfared was arrested shortly after the 2009 uprising in Iran and later sentenced to 15 years in prison. During the past 12 years, she has been denied necessary medical treatment, Rajavi said.
Rajavi also said urgent attention should be given to another female prisoner, Golrokh Ebrahimi Eraei, who was beaten and taken to Amol Prison in Northern Iran on Jan. 24. Ebrahimi Eraei had previously been held at the Qarchak Prison in Varamin.
The NCRI leaders urged the UN and Western countries to force Iran to allow welfare checks on all imprisoned dissidents, including women.
“On International Women's Day, the Iranian Resistance strongly condemns the forcible exile of Maryam Akbari Monfared and Golrokh Ebrahimi Eraei,” Rajavi said.
“We urge the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and international human rights organizations to take immediate action to secure the release of these two resilient women political prisoners.”
Rajavi has repeatedly asked for an international delegation to visit the clerical regime’s prisons and meet with prisoners, especially political prisoners. Rajavi has also urged Dubravka Simonovic, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, to investigate the health conditions of both Akbari Monfared and Ebrahimi Eraei.
