Bahman Ahamdi Amouie’s Family were not Allowed to Visit him in Prison

The IR Women’s website reports that the family of Bahman Ahmadi Amouee, a freelance journalist arrested at home in Tehran on June 20 with his wife, writer and journalist Jila Baniyaghoub, was not allowed a visit yesterday from his family.

Bahman’s brother, Zafar, who had driven to Tehran from Bandar Abbas, expressed his concern that the prison authorities did not inform them when they first went to the prison early in the morning, that Bahman was not permitted visits. After a long wait of several hours, Jila and Zafar had been issued with a permit giving permission for the visit. However, after a wait of over one hour in the visiting room, they were informed by one of the officers in charge of Section 209 in Evin Prison that their visit to see Bahman would not be allowed.

Zafar explained that this was hurting the families of the prisoners who were already under a lot of psychological pressure. He stated that they were unaware of the reason for Bahman’s arrest. The previous day, the family had been told by Judge Sobhanye that they should find Bahman’s file reference number, as the file itself had disappeared, and this number was required for the court to deal with Bahman’s case.

Bahman has been in solitary confinement for over 65 days and has only been allowed one 10 minute visit by his brother and mother in law during this time. Jila, who was herself released on bail of 90000 Euros a couple of days ago, has not seen her husband since their arrest.
An extremely distressed Zafar has had to return to his family home to tell his elderly mother of his brother’s continued detention.

Reporters without Borders have also expressed their concern about Bahman’s continued detention.