German-Iranian woman Nahid Taghavi has been released from prison in Iran, her daughter says.
“It’s over. Nahid is free! After more than four years as a political prisoner in the Islamic Republic of Iran my mother… was freed and is back in Germany,” Mariam Claren wrote on X.
Taghavi, 70, was arrested in Tehran in October 2020 and sentenced to 10 years in prison the following August after being convicted of forming a group “with the purpose of disrupting national security” and “spreading propaganda against the system”.
Amnesty International said the charges, which she denied, were apparently related to a social media account about women’s rights and that the trial was grossly unfair.
Responding to a photograph of Taghavi and her daughter embracing at an airport on Sunday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wrote: “A great moment of joy that Nahid Taghavi can finally embrace her family again.”
There was no immediate comment from the Iranian judiciary.
Amnesty International said Taghavi’s health deteriorated considerably while she was detained at the notorious Evin prison – in Iran’s capital Tehran – where it said conditions were “cruel and inhuman” and the medical care was “inadequate”.
She spent seven months in solitary confinement between her arrest and conviction, during which time she was forced to sleep on the floor, it said.
Taghavi also suffered from herniated discs, osteoporosis, diabetes and high blood pressure, according to her daughter.
In July 2022, Taghavi was granted urgent medical leave from prison for treatment for back and neck problems. However, she was sent back to Evin four months later.
A fellow inmate at Evin, Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, warned in June 2023 that Taghavi’s life was “in danger”, saying she was in such severe pain that “she can barely get out of her bed”.
Taghavi was allowed medical leave another two times during 2024.
The first began in January and lasted several weeks but she was recalled to prison before she had completed her medical treatment, the second began at the end of September. During those periods she had to wear an electronic ankle tag and had to remain within 1km (less than a mile) of her home in Tehran.
Amnesty said Taghavi had flown back to Germany on Sunday.
“Words cannot describe our joy,” Taghavi’s daughter said in a separate statement published by the human rights group on Monday.
“At the same time, we mourn the four years that were stolen from us and the horror she had to endure in Evin prison.”
Amnesty called on Iran to release the dozens of other dual nationals, and many other non-violent political prisoners, who it said were being arbitrarily detained.
Taghavi’s release comes months after the death of another imprisoned German-Iranian dual national sparked a diplomatic row between Berlin and Tehran.
At the end of October, Baerbock ordered the closure of all three Iranian consulates in Germany after Iranian state media reported that Jamshid Sharmahd – a US-based dissident who was sentenced to death in 2023 following a trial that rights groups said was unfair – had been executed.
However, the Iranian judiciary’s spokesman claimed days later that Sharmahd had “died before the sentence was carried out”. His family said she did not trust anything said by Iranian authorities and demanded an international investigation.
