Iran Continues Issuing Harsh Sentences Against Protesters
The Iranian regime continues to issue harsh sentences, including whipping and long-term imprisonment against journalists, students, teachers, lawyers, and other protesters.
The Iranian regime continues to issue harsh sentences, including whipping and long-term imprisonment against journalists, students, teachers, lawyers, and other protesters.
Nazila Maroufian, a journalist, was sentenced to two years in prison, fined 15 million tomans (almost 350 USD) and banned from leaving the country for five years on the charge of "propaganda and publishing lies through an interview with Mahsa Amini's father".
Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman was killed in police custody for not having proper hijab in mid-September and her death led to weeks of nationwide protests against the Islamic Republic.
Another journalist, Vida Rabbani was sentenced to 11 years behind bars. Her mother wrote a letter to the chief justice saying that “Vida, now at the age of 33 has to spend 11 years of her young age behind bars arbitrarily upon verdicts issued based on bias.”
On the other hand, US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported that Zahra Mehrabi, a student of Tehran University and one of the detainees from nationwide protests, has been sentenced to five years of suspended imprisonment by a revolutionary court.
Amnesty International has also warned that Arshiya Takdastan, an 18-year-old protester who was arrested during the protests north of Iran, has been sentenced to a double death sentence on charges of "war against God" and "corruption on earth".
Amnesty also drew attention to the case of Mehdi Mohammadifar, a 19-year-old protester who has also received a double death sentence.
The international human rights group said on Friday that the three protesters were tortured by “floggings, electric shocks, being hung upside down and death threats at gunpoint.”
Amnesty has also learned that Revolutionary Guard agents raped one of them and sexually tortured another by placing ice on his testicles for two days.
Arshia Takdastan, 18, Mehdi Mohammadifard, 19, and Javad Rouhi, 31, each received two death sentences in December 2022 for “war against God” and “corruption on earth”.
The court says the young men have “incited” arson by throwing headscarves into bonfires during protests in Noshahr, in northern Manzandaran province on September 21.
Javad Rouhi has received the third death sentence as he has confessed under duress that he burned a copy of the Quran during protests.
“The fact that Arshia Takdastan, Mehdi Mohammadifard and Javad Rouhi and their anguished relatives live under the shadow of execution while Revolutionary Guard agents and prosecution officials reasonably suspected of responsibility or complicity in their sexual abuse and other forms of torture enjoy absolute impunity highlights the sheer cruelty and inhumanity of Iran’s judicial system,” noted Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director.
“The Iranian authorities must immediately quash the convictions and death sentences of these young men and drop all charges related to their peaceful participation in protests,” she added.
According to videos published on social media, the regime’s security forces also used teargas to disperse the residents of Zahedan who were chanting antigovernment slogans after they left the Makki Mosque, where they attended the Friday prayers led by the outspoken Sunni cleric Mowlavi Abdolhamid.
People in other cities of Baluch and Sunni majority Sistan-Baluchestan province, such as Rask and Khash also poured onto the streets to renew their opposition to the Islamic Republic. Similar rallies by Iranian Sunni Muslims in the city of Galikash, in the northern Golestan province, were also held outside the home of the city’s Sunni cleric Mowlvi Mohammad Hossein Gorgij, the deposed Friday Imam of Azadshahr. Meanwhile, in the southwestern city of Izeh, in Khuzestan province, a memorial ceremony was held for Hossein Saeedi, a protester who was killed in the city 40 days ago.
Gorgij, who was also summoned to the special court for clergy after his dismissal, appeared among the protesters and criticized the policies of the regime as incorrect, saying that “it has been 45 years that the Islamic Republic is chanting ‘death to America,’ that resulted in the fall of its currency to 450,000 (against the US dollar).
His dismissal has led to public outrage and protests. The Shiite clerical authorities made the move as a reaction to some of his remarks that were deemed insulting to Shia sanctities. Gorgij, however, issued a statement afterwards to apologize, clarifying that his speech was misinterpreted, and he meant no disrespect towards the Shias.
In the videos posted on social media Friday, people are heard chanting slogans against the regime, including its ruler Ali Khamenei who was referred to as “the dictator” as well as the Basij militia of the Revolutionary Guard, who are seen as responsible for than 500 civilian deaths in the past four months.
During his Friday prayer sermons, Mowlavi Abdolhamid, the most influential Sunni cleric in Iran, talked about widespread poverty across the country and emphasized that people supported the 1979 revolution in Iran for the same reasons they protest today. He also called for the abolition of the death penalty in the country. Most of the people executed in Iran are from the Baluch minority along with the Kurds. "Today, people are crying for the justice they wanted in the 1979 revolution; They want freedom, and they are stuck in poverty, hardship and problems."
He described the empathy and unity of Iranians inside and outside the country as exemplary, saying that the people of Iran regard freedom of speech and assembly as their rights and want to be able to choose capable managers to run the country.
"Our nation is not in favor of executions. This people are the owners of their country, and they want the authorities to exercise caution in issuing death sentences and executing people,” he added.
In the 133 days since the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, in addition to 500 people killed in antigovernment protests, about 20,000 people have been arrested and hundreds wounded seriously. Many young people have lost one or both eyes because security forces fired pellets at their faces.
The regime has so far executed four people and dozens are sentenced for ‘moharebeh’ -- meaning “fighting God'' in the lexicon of the Iranian regime -- and ‘corruption on earth’ that carry the death penalty.
