![\"Maryam](\"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/10\/Maryam-Akbari-Monfared-Banned-From-Family-Visits-Writes-a-Happy-Birthday-Letter-to-13-Year-Old-Daughter.jpg\" "\\"Maryam-Akbari-Monfared-Banned-From-Family-Visits-Writes-a-Happy-Birthday-Letter-to-13-Year-Old-Daughter\\"")
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By\u00a0Mahmoud Hakamian<\/p>\n
An Iranian political prisoner who has been imprisoned for nine years and was recently banned from receiving family visits has written her daughter a letter to wish her a happy 13th birthday.<\/p>\n
Maryam Akbari Monfared wrote: \u201cMy dear Nazanin: I was not with you on your 13th birthday. I know that by now you understand why we\u2019re apart. I know that you\u2019ve suffered a lot these past nine years. Yet, we have promised each other to smile until smiles light the faces of all of Iran\u2019s children. We promised each other to cherish our brief visits, for all of the times that we miss being together. We have pledged together to vanquish a monster.\u201d<\/p>\n
Monfared\u2019s letter, which was dated October 6, explains how she was first arrested, torn from her then-three-year-old daughter, Nazanin, who was asleep in her arms, and how painful it is to celebrate her birthday from behind the visiting room glass, having to keep track of her daughter\u2019s age in lines of the concrete of her cell.<\/p>\n
She writes that last week, she and Nazanin had spoken about the upcoming milestone birthday and how they both expected to celebrate in the prison\u2019s visiting room, but this was cruelly snatched away by the prison authorities.<\/p>\n
She wrote: \u201cIt was more than I could bear to tell you that our visit next week would be cancelled. My heart burned with anger and loathing for [the authorities], who would rob even the smile off your face. Flames of rage are still burning inside me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Monfared, as well as fellow political prisoners Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee and Atena Daemi, received a three-week ban on family visits from the director of the Evin Prison Women\u2019s Ward, after they protested prison authorities\u2019 attempts to illegally interrogate them at the end of September. They have appealed the sentence, which should be suspended until the case is heard, but no one has lifted the ban.<\/p>\n