Abdollah Momeni Released After Completing Five Year Term Without Furlough

Photo from Mr. Momeni’s Facebook page shows him among friends and family immediately after release on March 13, 2014.

Abdollah Momeni, former Spokesperson for the nationwide Iranian alumni association, Advar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat, was released from prison on Thursday, March 13, 2014, after completing his five year prison sentence without a single day of furlough.

Abdollah Momeni was arrested on June 20, 2009, after the disputed presidential election in Iran. Momeni and the student alumni group had supported the opposition presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi in the election. Momeni was sentenced to five years which he served at Ward 350 of Tehran’s Evin Prison. A year after his imprisonment, he wrote a letter to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei detailing his torture by his interrogators in prison, several months of which had been spent in solitary cells. After writing the letter to Khamenei, Momeni was deprived of in-person family visits and furlough.

Abdollah Momeni’s is among hundreds of civil society leaders and opinion makers who faced prosecution, unfair trial, and lengthy sentences that took place following the disputed 2009 presidential election.