Keyvan Samimi, the Iranian journalist and Nationalist-Religious activist, was released from Rejai Shahr Prison at the end of his sentence.

Keyvan Samimi

Samimi was arrested one day after the controversial presidential election of 2009 and was sentenced to six years in jail for questioning the legitimacy of the vote count, participating in election protests and writing material critical of the controversial election.

Samimi is a long-time political activist with a history of arrests dating back to before the 1979 Revolution.

Samimi is a member of the National Peace Council and the Probe Committee into Arbitrary Arrests as well as the Committees for the Protection of Civil Rights and the Right to Education.

On several occasions while in prison, Samimi went on hunger strikes to protest prison conditions.

In a letter to President Hassan Rohani, Samimi wrote some months ago that “instead of spending so much time and energy on negotiating the release of prisoners, he should focus on removing the obstacles to freedom of speech”.

Now that six years have passed since the 2009 presidential election, several political activists and journalists who were arrested at the time are reaching the end of their terms and being released.