The two Iranian journalists Niloufar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi, arrested in September 2022 for helping to spread the news about the death of the young Mahsa Amini and her photos in hospital, have been released on bail from Evin prison in Tehran. The two colleagues, aged 36 and 31 respectively, posed for a photo, spread on social media, which shows them smiling while holding hands outside the prison. Mohammadi, a reporter for the Ham Mihan newspaper, was sentenced in 2023 to 6 years for collaboration with the United States, 5 for plotting against the country’s security and one for propaganda against the Islamic Republic. Similar sentences for Hamedi, photographer for the Shargh newspaper, the author of the photo of Amini in hospital, who however received 7 years, one more than her colleague, for the first “crime” of cooperation with the USA.
Both had been in prison since their arrest a few days after Mahsa Amini’s death while under arrest, and while this fact began to provoke the protests that continued for many months across the country. The bail for their release was the equivalent of around 170 thousand euros, but they will not be able to leave the country. They will remain out of prison until the appeal trial, the date of which has not yet been set. Niloufar Hamedi is the author of the photos of Mahsa Amini in a coma, and of her parents embracing each other in a corridor of the hospital where the 22-year-old was hospitalized until her death. Elaheh Mohammadi had instead written about the funeral of the girl of Kurdish origin, in Saqqez in the west of the country.