According to media reports, the award-winning Iranian journalists Mohammadi and Hamedi have been released on bail in Tehran. You reported on the death of the Iranian Kurd Amini in 2022.
Two Iranian journalists who reported on the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022 have been released from prison. As the reform-oriented newspaper “Schargh” and a lawyer for the two women reported, 31-year-old Nilufar Hamedi and 36-year-old Elaheh Mohammadi were “temporarily” released from Ewin Prison in Tehran on bail.
In the photo and a video published on online networks, the two women can be seen smiling and holding hands near the prison. Hamedi, who works for the Shargh newspaper, was arrested a few days after Amini’s death in September 2022 after visiting the hospital where the 22-year-old had been admitted following her arrest by Iran’s moral police. The young Kurdish woman was arrested for allegedly violating the strict Islamic dress code. Her death sparked months of protests. Mohammadi was also arrested in September 2022.
Collaboration, conspiracy and propaganda
The photographer from the reform-oriented newspaper “Ham Miham” had previously traveled to Amini’s hometown of Sakes in the Kurdistan province to report on her funeral, which was accompanied by protests. Both women have since been imprisoned in Tehran’s notorious Ewin Prison. In October 2023, they were found guilty in separate trials of collaboration with the USA, conspiracy against the country’s security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic and sentenced to prison terms of several years. They each had to deposit 100 billion rials (around 170,000 euros) as bail.