Two things come to mind.
These two women were converts from Islam, an action which earns the extreme ire of the Iranian religious leaders. Had they been born into Christian or Zoroastrian families, they may not have been persecuted in the same way.
The Baha'is in Iran are persecuted in a far more severe manner. Even those who come from families which have been Baha'i for a hundred years or more. See the following: Iran Press Watch
I’d say this is done with mirrors, a token release, perhaps.
Under IRI’s current “religious” laws (apostasy included) converting out of Islam for an Iranian born muslim to another religion can be often punishable by death. However, IRI is more political than religious.
Your points about born into Christian or Zoroastrian families, as well as the treatment of the Baha’is in Iran are very valid.
This release, though very welcome, is a naked PR gesture on the part of the IRI. They know their image outside Iran is very bad. This event is calculated to take heat of the régime and buy time to close what gates are still open to freedom. The brutal rapists and sadistic butchers who “guard” the prisoners in Evin and other prisons inside Iran are still up to their same old tricks. What happens inside Iran’s prisons makes those in other countries look like palaces by comparison. The crimes committed by the rulers of Iran and their minions against the people of Iran are systematically being exposed despite repeated efforts to control the flow of information out of and into the country. But the world has yet to respond to these revelations. Remember Darfur? How much longer beyond the 30 years already past will the world stand by and silently allow Persia’s intelligent, gifted and passionate people to be slaughtered?????
Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne,
But the scaffold sways the future
And behind the dim unknown
Standeth God within the shadows,
Keeping watch, keeping watch above His own”
- James Russell Lowell