Political prisoner Monireh Rabiei, 32, was sentenced by the 26th branch of the Revolutionary Court to 5 years of prison to be served in Borazjan for having a phone call from his uncle who is in Ashraf, Iraq. Pressure and abuse against Monireh and her family has intensified.

Monireh Rabiei, a chemical engineer, has been under psychological pressure for weeks and has been subjected to degrading treatment and insults by prison guards. She has also been banned from receiving visits from her family for several weeks. Then when such visits were permitted she was offensively body searched and then summoned by the assistant head of prison and pressurized after every visit.

On the other hand, her family is insulted and threatened by female prison guards when coming to the visiting hall. One of the female guards body searches them in an insulting manner and uses offensive language when talking to them trying to provoke them into a reaction to ban them from future visits.

Some time ago, her family was informed via Ms. Rabiei's lawyer that she can be released on bail. They spent a large amount of money and time and pledged their home ownership document in the Registration Department for the bail. But when they went to court, they were told that the letter for the home ownership pledge was missing, while they had confirmed that they had received the letter and the receipt of the pledge letter was even documented in the court secretariat office.

Monireh Rabiei's case is in the hands of Pir Abassi, the head of the 26th branch of the Revolutionary Court. He is the person who treats her family inhumanely and is preventing her release in spite of court order that she could be released on bail.

Monireh was sentenced by the 26th branch of the Revolutionary Court to 5 years prison some time ago But the sentence was only recently revealed to her family. Monireh and her lawyer protested this heavy and inhumane sentence and her appeal has been referred to the 36th branch of the Revolutionary Court.

Monireh was arrested on October 7, 2009 when she was summoned to the 3rd branch of the Revolutionary Court to answer questions. She was arrested because she answered a phone call from her uncle who is in exile in Camp Ashraf in Iraq. She was detained in solitary in section 209 of Evin Prison for close to 20 days while being interrogated and physically and psychologically tortured and insulted by an intelligence agency interrogator, nicknamed Alavi. She was then transferred to section 350 in the women's section of Evin. Rabiei has denied all conspiracy charges against her saying that the call from her uncle was a family call and it is a shameful that her private family calls are tapped. Her lawyer believes that the trial was a show trial and her sentence was pre-determined.