DUBAI: Iranian authorities have pardoned 80 prisoners ahead of President Hassan Rowhani’s visit to the United Nations in New York this week, Iranian media reported yesterday.
In a tentative sign that hardline policies are starting to soften following moderate conservative Rowhani’s inauguration last month, authorities freed prominent human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and at least 10 other prisoners last week.
Yesterday, judiciary spokesman Mohseni Ejei told a news conference 80 prisoners had been pardoned, including some arrested over protests that followed the disputed re-election of former hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009.
Ejei’s comments suggest the total of 80 includes those freed last week in a move seen as intended to dampen Western criticism of Iran’s human rights record ahead of Rowhani’s address to the UN General Assembly.
Last week’s releases came after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said he supported “flexibility” in Iranian diplomacy, a rare signal that he might endorse a shift in Tehran’s stance in its problematic relations with the West.
“A number of security prisoners were granted amnesty by the Supreme Leader,” Ejei said. “They can be granted pardon on the suggestion of the head of the judiciary and that can include all or part of their punishments.”
The United States and its allies have intensified economic sanctions on Iran in recent years in an attempt to force Tehran to open its nuclear programme to greater international scrutiny.
Rowhani left Tehran for the United Nations yesterday.
REUTERS
