Ganji - The Promise to Freedom

Rooz Online:

Masoumeh Shafiee, Akbar Ganji's wife says she is expecting her husband to be freed soon. She says Milad hospital officials have said he qualifies to be released and they have sent the request letter to prosecutor general's office.

Ganji's wife is impatiently waiting for her husband’s release and is already speaking about a family trip, adding that her children are not in the best of emotional conditions. When asked about the possibility that officials may break their promises, she says she hopes that mediator has won Ganji's trust and believes that he is already in final stages of being freed. She comes short in saying that the new negotiator between the judiciary officials and her husband is any better than others but the talks, she adds, have come to a positive point where they have promised to release her husband in the next few days.

When asked about her recent silence about Ganji's situation, she says her efforts to limit the number of her interviews with foreign media as well as her angry protests against Tehran's prosecutor general and his agents has somehow been effective in improving Akbar Ganji's situation. She adds that if (not when) her husband is released, she and her family would resume their normal life.

In its internal bulletin, the Iranian Professional Journalists Association has written an extensive report on Ganji's hunger strike, his leave from prison and short “disappearance”. According to the report, "For the last two months Akbar Ganji was at the top of domestic and international news media, and even Iran’s June presidential elections, its results and Khatami's farewell events. No other story could break the news of the hunger stricken reformist journalist." READ MORE

The report goes on that Ganji's story was even hard-line conservative Keyhan's top story. Keyhan claimed Shirin Ebadi, the Noble Peace prize winner along with Ganji’s close acquaintances, had a plot for Ganji. His wife denied such claims and wrote a letter to the head of the Judiciary asking him to personally take the control of her husband's case that was trapped in the hands of Saeed Mortazavi, Tehran's notorious prosecutor. Shirin Ebadi and other Ganji's human rights lawyers' efforts to visit him at Milad hospital proved futile. Mohammad Khatami in a telephone conversation with the head of the Judiciary tried to pave the way for Gani's release and had asked him to write a letter for conditional release, but Ganji and his family had rejected the conditional release.

At the same time that some senior reformist officials, mainly Mohammad Khatami were working behind the scenes, domestic and international pressures from intellectuals and dignitaries also demanded Ganji's release. UN’s Kofi Annan wrote a letter to Iran's new president and asked him to release Ganji and this seems to have been the turning point, the report further says.

The report continues that contradictory comments by Tehran's prosecutor as well as other senior judicial officials had also complicated Ganji's situation in the hospital, while in the last two weeks of his hunger strike in Milad hospital, his family were banned from visiting him.

Symbolic gatherings in support of Ganji were also held by different groups and organizations inside Iran and internationally.