In Iran, the activist and journalist Sepideh Gholian was released after more than four years in prison: she announced it through a video posted on her social profiles. Gholian is 28 years old, she had been arrested for the first time in 2018 following a trade union protest in which she had participated as a journalist: from prison she had repeatedly denounced, through letters and messages, the abuses to which political prisoners are subjected in Iranian prisons and especially women. In one of her last letters, in January, she had recounted the torture with which her false confessions are extracted.
Briefly released on bail a few months later in 2018, she was arrested again in January 2019 and sentenced to five years for crimes “against national security”. In the video with which she announced the release of her Gholian, she wears a traditional dress, does not have a veil and pronounces some slogans against the Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei. In the accompanying message you call for the release of other Iranian political prisoners.
After four years and seven months, I was released from the Haftepe case. This time I came out hoping for the freedom of Iran! Hoping for the release of my dear ones Sepideh Kashani, Nilofar Bayani, Zahra Zahtabchi, Bahare Hedayat, Golrokh Iraei, Nahid Taqavi and all political prisoners, especially women prisoners. #Women_Life_Freedom pic.twitter.com/xsatUX1vZf
— sepideqoliyan (@sepideqoliyan) March 15, 2023
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