Two Iranian women's rights activists were released on bail yesterday after spending more than a month in Tehran's Evin prison accused of spreading propaganda against the state.

"They came out and we are at a friend's house now," activist Sussan Tahmasebi said after the release of Jelveh Javaheri and Maryam Hosseinkhah who, she said, were detained on December 1 and November 18 respectively.

Ms Tahmasebi said bail was set at 50 million rials ($5,300) each in the form of a guaranteed bank cheque. A US-based rights group last month called on Iran to drop "politically motivated" charges against the two activists facing trial for taking part in a protest and said they should be freed immediately.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said they were active in a drive to collect one million signatures in favour of greater female rights. They were also among a group of women who took part in a banned demonstration in Tehran last March.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.