Iranian officials pardoned two journalists who were imprisoned for reporting about Mahsa Amini’s death in captivity in 2022, which triggered protests across the country, according to official media on Tuesday.
Days after creating media coverage of Amini’s death, Elaheh Mohammadi, 37, and Niloufar Hamedi, 32, were found guilty and imprisoned in September 2022. After more than a year in jail, the two female journalists were released on bail.
“The cases of Ms. Hamedi and Ms. Mohammadi have been granted amnesty and are included in the list of pardons presented on Tuesday,” the judiciary’s news website Mizan Online stated.
A reporter for the reformist Ham Mihan daily, Mohammadi, was arrested after covering Amini’s funeral, which descended into a protest, in Saqez, in the western Iranian region of Kurdistan.
After sharing a photo of Amini’s distraught family on social media, Hamedi, a photojournalist for Shargh Daily, was detained less than a week after Amini’s passing.
Both of them had been sentenced to prison for their cooperation with the US, their plotting against state security, and their propaganda against the Islamic Republic.
The two journalists were cleared of the charge of working with the United States, according to their attorneys in August.
The two journalists’ cases were “closed” on Tuesday, according to Shargh’s report.
Iranian Kurd Amini, 22, was detained on suspicion of violating the country’s stringent clothing codes, which have been in effect since soon after the Islamic revolution in 1979.
After her passing, Iran was rocked by months of riots that resulted in thousands of protesters being detained and hundreds of people—including dozens of security personnel—being slain.
