Iran releases veteran political prisoner Maryam Akbari Monfared after 16 years without leave

Hengaw – Wednesday, April 8, 2026

Iranian authorities have released veteran political prisoner Maryam Akbari Monfared after more than 16 years in prison without a single day of furlough, according to information obtained by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights.

Akbari Monfared, 50, a mother of three, was released on April 8, 2026, after completing a combined 18-year sentence, including an initial 15-year term and an additional three-year sentence imposed during her imprisonment.

She had spent 6,310 consecutive days in detention without being granted temporary leave.

Akbari Monfared was arrested on Dec. 30, 2009, during protests linked to Iran’s Green Movement. Branch 15 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Abolghasem Salavati, sentenced her to 15 years in prison on charges of “Waging war against God (moharebeh) through membership in the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI)."

As her initial sentence neared completion in 2025, authorities opened a new case against her and sentenced her to an additional three years on charges including “propaganda against the state” and “insulting the supreme leader,” effectively prolonging her imprisonment.

Akbari Monfared is a member of families seeking justice for executions carried out in the 1980s. One of her sisters and three brothers were executed by Iranian authorities during that period.

In 2016, she filed a complaint with the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, seeking information about the fate of her siblings, Roqieh and Abdulreza Akbari Monfared, executed in 1988. This effort led to increased pressure on her and her subsequent internal exile.

She was transferred from Evin Prison to Semnan Prison in 2021 and later held in Qarchak Prison, where she served the final part of her sentence.