DUSHANBE, September 1, Asia-Plus -- Two Iranian nationals, who were serving their sentences in the Yovon penal colony for illegally entering the country, have been released.  

Their defense lawyer Hamzabek Hakimzoda said in an interview with Asia-Plus that his clients now believe that their lives are out of danger.  

We will recall that a month ago, two Iranian nationals imprisoned in Tajikistan asked the Tajik government and international organizations o help them obtain political asylum.  The two men, Mehdi Mousavi and Asad Haidari, said they had converted to Christianity and were involved in political activity in Iran, and that their pending deportation to Iran would put their lives in danger.  

The Iranian Embassy in Dushanbe issued on August 8 a formal statement clarifying the case of two Iranian asylum-seekers.  According to the statement, there has been no official request for their extradition or deportation to Iran, and that even if they did return to Iran, their conversion to another religion would not be a problem, as “nobody is persecuted for religious beliefs and even expression of them.”   

As it had been reported earlier, Mousavi and Haidari were arrested while illegally crossing the Afghan-Tajik border in 2006.   

The lawyer said that Mousavi and Haidari had already been amnestied.  “They have been temporarily placed outside Dushanbe until the issue of granting them a refugee status and the place of their future staying is resolved,” said Hakimzoda, “The State Agency for Social Protection of the Population and Migration at the Ministry of Labor and Social Security resolves such issues.”