Dec. 20 (EUROPA PRESS) –
Political activist Majid Tavakoli, also a student leader in the 2009 protests in Iran, has been released on bail after being jailed for nearly three months in Tehran’s Evin prison after being arrested during riots over the death of the young Mahsa Amini.
“We are happy about this news, but our happiness will be complete when all the loved ones who are in prison are released,” said his brother Mohsen Tavakoli early in the morning, who published a photo of the Iranian activist with a bouquet of flowers on his Twitter account.
Tavakoli is a prominent student leader who was already arrested in 2009 after attending a university rally in the framework of the anti-government protests that followed the disputed presidential elections in June of that same year.
The activist was sentenced in 2010 to eight and a half years in prison on various charges, including spreading propaganda against the Iranian state. He was considered a “prisoner of conscience” for having been imprisoned for his political views, according to Amnesty International.
Although he was released in 2015, the authorities imposed a five-year ban on him from carrying out political activities and prohibited him from leaving the country. Tavakoli was arrested on September 23 during protests over the death of Amini along with two journalists, since which date he has been subjected to solitary confinement.
The death of the young Amini, arrested for wearing the veil incorrectly and who died in police custody, has led to a series of protests at the national level and harshly repressed by the authorities. These episodes have prompted sanctions from Western nations.
