Saeid Rezaie, one of the seven members of the former leadership group of the Baha'is in Iran who were imprisoned due to religious beliefs, has been released at the completion of his sentence, an organisation representing the community in India said today.
Rezaie and six of his colleagues were arrested in 2008 after an early-morning raid on their homes, it said.
They were part of the ad hoc group known as the Yaran, or the friends, which tended to the basic spiritual and material needs of the Iranian Baha'is community, said the statement issued by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahais of India.
Rezaie is the fourth member of the group to complete his sentence. He was released in Iran on Friday. Three other members -- Mahvash Sabet, Fariba Kamalabadi and Behrouz Tavakkoli -- were released in September, October and December 2017 respectively.
In the past years, economic persecution against the Baha'is has escalated in what the Baha'is international community has called, in an open letter to President Hassan Rouhani, an "economic apartheid against a segment of Iran's population".
The three remaining members of the Yaran -- Jamaloddin Khanjani, aged 84; Afif Naeimi, aged 56 and Vahid Tizfahm, aged 44 -- are expected to complete their sentences in the coming months, it said.
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