Iran has released 30 so-called "mournful mothers" who were arrested for protesting the death or disappearance of their children in post-election unrest, an opposition website reported Thursday. The authorities also released an aide to former reformist president Mohammad Khatami, as well as a brother-in-law of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, according to Kaleme.org.
"All of the 30 mournful mothers were released from detention on Tuesday. They were kept in Evin prison or in a police station for 72 hours," the website reported. It gave no further details. On Sunday Kaleme.org, quoting witnesses, said the women were rounded up Saturday in Tehran's Laleh park.
"There were around 70 mothers in the park and the security chased them out. A number of them escaped but around 30 were arrested and were forcefully taken into police vans," one witness said. On Tuesday Washington called for the immediate release of "mournful mothers" - a group of mothers whose children have gone either missing or killed in protests unleashed following Ahmadinejad's re-election.
Kaleme.org is the website of key opposition leader and defeated presidential candidate Mousavi, who charges that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election in June was fraudulent. It also reported that Khatami aide Morteza Haji, was also released along with Mousavi's brother-in-law Shahpur Kazemi. Both had been detained in the aftermath of the December 27 anti-government protests during the Shiite religious commemoration of Ashura, which left eight people dead.
The post-vote unrest, now in its seventh month, was triggered by Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election in the June 12 poll, which the opposition charged was massively rigged to keep the hard-liner in power. Hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters poured into streets in week-long protests and have held sporadic demonstrations ever since, mainly alongside state-sponsored events.
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