Iran has released two conservationists who worked to save the endangered Asiatic cheetah after spending five years in prison on espionage charges, as reported by local media on Tuesday. The Tehran newspaper Etemad stated that Niloufar Bayani and Houman Jowkar were released on Monday night, along with more than 2,000 other prisoners granted amnesty for Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of Ramadan.
Bayani and Jowkar, members of the nonprofit Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, were part of a group of five activists convicted in 2019. The United Nations Environment Program expressed its approval of their release. Their colleagues Sepideh Kashani and Taher Ghadirain were also included in the amnesty list, while Sam Rajabi, another member of the group, had been released in 2023.
The conservationists were arrested in 2018, along with Kavous Seyed-Emami, the founder of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation. Seyed-Emami, an Iranian-Canadian dual citizen, passed away under disputed circumstances while awaiting trial. Bayani received a 10-year prison sentence in 2019, while the others were given six-to-eight-year terms on espionage charges that drew international criticism.
