Article 18
A woman in Iran who was sentenced to two years in prison and a two-year travel ban for “acting against national security through connections with Zionist Christian organisations” was released May 31, according to media reports.
Laleh Saati, 46, had converted to Christianity and claimed asylum in Malaysia, where she was baptized before returning in 2017 to the Middle Eastern country, the London-based nonprofit Article 18, which seeks to protect persecuted Christians in Iran, reported June 4. Her conviction was based in part on photos and videos of her Christian practices in Malaysia, the article said. Saati came back from Malaysia because she wanted to be with her parents and because she was frustrated about how long it was taking for her asylum claim to be processed, according to the article.
The article said that, according to the Persian-language website Human Rights in Iran, Saati served more than 15 months of the prison sentence. She was held in Tehran’s Evin Prison, and her most recent weeks in prison were in the Ministry of Intelligence’s Ward 209, so she is in a “psychologically unstable state,” according to the article.
As Article 18 previously reported, Saati, who was arrested in February 2024 when intelligence agents raided her father’s home, had been denied specialized medical care and medical furlough after experiencing a fall in the prison yard “that left her two fingers on her left hand bent.”
Saati is forbidden from speaking with “any media or other contacts abroad” and she is banned from traveling for two years, the June 4 article said.
“Both she and her mother were also reportedly threatened with another conviction last summer as a result of the publicity Laleh’s case received,” the article said.