BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s foreign minister on Monday welcomed the release of a German-Iranian rights activist from prison in Iran and her return to Germany.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wrote on social media platform X that it is “a wonderful moment of joy that Nahid Taghavi can finally hug her family again.”
Baerbock retweeted a message from Taghavi’s daughter, Mariam Claren, with a photo of her hugging her mother, which read: “It’s over. Nahid is free! After more than four years as a political prisoner in the Islamic Republic of Iran, my mother Nahid Taghavi was released and is back in Germany.”
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Taghavi was sentenced to ten years and eight months in prison in Iran in 2021.
Rights group Amnesty International, which has lobbied for Taghavi’s release for years, said in a statement Monday that “after more than 1,500 days of arbitrary detention, Iranian-German women’s rights activist Nahid Taghavi has been released.”
“Since her arrest, Amnesty International has campaigned for her unconditional release and an end to her persecution,” the group said, adding that Taghavi landed in Germany on Sunday.
Taghavi was arrested in October 2020 during a visit to Tehran and later sentenced to prison for alleged involvement in an “illegal group” and for “propaganda against the state” and was held incommunicado and tortured for months, according to Amnesty International.