Iran Releases Jailed Rights Campaigner Mohammadi

Iran’s semiofficial ISNA news agency says that human rights activist Narges Mohammadi has been freed after serving four years of a 10-year prison sentence. Citing an official from the country’s judiciary, ISNA said she was released late on Wednesday from a prison some 175 miles northwest of Tehran. An ardent campaigner against the death penalty, Mohamaddi was already in custody for four and a half years when she was convicted in 2016 on various charges that ranged from heading an outlawed group to harming state security. In July, the human rights organization Amnesty International called on Tehran to let her go due to pre-existing health conditions that put her in danger of contracting the coronavirus. Iran is considered the pandemic’s epicenter for the Middle East, and prisons are notoriously conducive to infections. There was no mention as to whether this was behind her release. A physicist by training, Mohamaddi was awarded the Andrei Sakharov Prize while incarcerated. The prize is given to scientists who are active in the field of human rights.