MANOUCHEHR BAKHTIARI HAS BEEN TRANSFERRED TO BANDAR ABBAS PRISON

Saba Bakhtiari, the aunt of the late Pouya Bakhtiari, announced on her social media accounts the re-arrest and transfer of her brother, Manouchehr Bakhtiari, to Bandar Abbas Prison.

According to her post, Manouchehr Bakhtiari informed his family today by phone about the details of his re-arrest. He stated that the interrogators in his case are Mohsen Roustai and Alireza Farzaneh, and that Judge Mo’tamedi of Branch 12 has issued a bail order set at five billion tomans. This comes despite the fact that the Bakhtiari family has for years been under intense security pressure, repeated arrests, confiscation of property, and the non-return of previous bail amounts, leaving them effectively unable to provide such a sum. In such cases, bail has become a tool for economic pressure and punishment against justice-seeking families.

More alarming is Mr. Bakhtiari’s account that on the night before his arrest, four individuals went to his home and threatened to kill him. This explicit threat has raised serious concerns about his life.

The charges brought against him include calling for violence and bloodshed, connections with the leader of a terrorist group, and correspondence with Donald Trump. These are vague, repetitive, and unclear accusations that have long been used against civil activists and justice-seeking families and are clearly incompatible with the principles of a fair trial.

Pouya Bakhtiari, the son of Manouchehr Bakhtiari, was killed by direct gunfire from government forces during the 2019 uprising. Yet instead of accountability for this killing, his father has been repeatedly arrested and imprisoned. The latest arrest took place just three months after his conditional release, while he was still under forced internal exile, an exile that even deprived him of the ability to visit his son’s grave.