Mahvash Sabet, one of the seven members of the former leadership group of the Baha’is in Iran who were imprisoned due to religious beliefs, has been released after completing her 10-year prison sentence, an organisation representing the community in India said on Tuesday.
Prior to being expelled from her profession for being a Baha’i, Ms. Sabet worked as a teacher and school principal and collaborated with the National Literacy Committee of Iran, said the statement issued by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of India.
Ms. Sabet (64), was the first member of the ad-hoc group known as “the Yaran”, or the friends, to be arrested in March 2008, it said.
The six others were arrested in May of the same year after an early morning raid at their homes.
Their arrest and imprisonment prompted an international outcry for their release by the United Nations, governments and media around the world, the statement said.
“Mahvash Sabet, one of the seven members of the former leadership group of the Baha’is in Iran who were imprisoned due to religious beliefs, has been released after completing her unjust 10-year prison sentence,” it said.
The group Yaran, now disbanded, was formed with the full knowledge and approval of the Iranian authorities after formal Baha’i institutions were declared illegal in Iran in the 1980s, it said.
“The community of international lawyers, welcomes the decision of the Iranian government to release Mahvash Sabet, who we are aware was imprisoned wrongfully along with the other 6 Baha’i leaders known as Yaran,” said G Venkatesh Rao advocate, Supreme Court and life member, Indian Society of International Law.
He said the international community lead by the UN Secretary General and other organs like the UN Human Rights Council have given unstinting support to the cause of the Baha’is and their leaders.
“Iranian government would win the praise of the world and have its record of human rights straightened if they soon and immediately release the other six leaders as well,” Mr. Rao said.
In the past years, economic persecution against the Baha’is has escalated in what the Baha’is international community has called, in an open letter to President Hassan Rouhani, an “economic apartheid against a segment of Iran’s population”.
Since 2013 alone hundreds of Baha’is shops and businesses have been sealed, leaving scores of families without an income.
The six remaining members of the Yaran are also expected to complete their sentences in the coming months.
The six leaders of the Yaran still in prison are —— Fariba Kamalabadi (55); Jamalodin Khanjani (83); Afif Naeimi (55); Saeid Rezai (59); Behrooz Tavakkoli (65) and Vahid Tizfahm (43), the release said.
