Iran frees several opposition figures

Some have been released on bail while others have merely been given a respite from their incarceration, the newspaper said.

TEHRAN, February 25, 2010 (AFP) - A number of Iranian opposition figures rounded up during anti-government protests in the past few months have been freed, the reformist Bahar newspaper reported Thursday.

Some have been released on bail while others have merely been given a respite from their incarceration, the newspaper said.

Jahanbakhsh Khanjani, a member of the reformist Executives of Construction party, who was interior ministry spokesman during the tenure of reformist ex-president Mohammad Khatami, was among those released on bail, the report said.

Khanjani has been sentenced to six years in jail for "acting against national security" and "propagating against the regime," but has appealed the verdict, the paper said.

It said several other activists have also been released, among them opposition figures Sara and Leyla Tavassoli and Mahmoud Naeempour, as well as Asghar Khandan, a reformist and former member of the elite Revolutionary Guards.

They had all been arrested in the past few months for their alleged involvement in protests that erupted in the wake of the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009.

The paper said, meanwhile, that Ebrahim Yazdi, 79, leader of the outlawed but tolerated Freedom Movement who arrested two months ago, has been given a 10-day leave from the prison.

The latest releases follow the freeing on bail in recent weeks of several other opposition figures, sometimes after convictions at trials.

Several thousand people have been arrested since June for their participation in protests against the re-election of Ahmadinejad in a vote the opposition claims was massively rigged.

Most have been freed, but hundreds, including dozens of reformist figures, journalists and human rights activists, remain behind bars.

Some opposition leaders have already been handed hefty prison terms and a dozen people accused of trying to foment unrest and overthrow the regime have been sentenced to death.

Two were executed in January while the other 10 are awaiting the outcomes of their appeals.