{"id":1410,"date":"2019-01-23T19:02:04","date_gmt":"2019-01-23T19:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1410"},"modified":"2019-01-23T19:02:19","modified_gmt":"2019-01-23T19:02:19","slug":"iran-sentences-men-who-supported-womens-protests-against-compulsory-hijab-to-six-years-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1410","title":{"rendered":"Iran Sentences Men Who Supported Women\u2019s Protests Against Compulsory Hijab to Six Years Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reza Khandan and Farhad Meysami Denied Right to a Public Trial<\/p><\/div>\n

January 22, 2019 \u2013\u00a0Reza Khandan\u00a0and\u00a0Farhad Meysami\u00a0have both been sentenced to six years imprisonment in Iran and banned from leaving the country or engaging in online activities for two years for peacefully protesting the country\u2019s compulsory hijab law.<\/p>\n

\u201cIran wants to silence these men by jailing them for standing by women who want the hijab to be a choice, not a requirement,\u201d said Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only crime they committed is peacefully exercising their rights of freedom of speech and expression,\u201d said Ghaemi. \u201cIran\u2019s judiciary should heed their calls for a fair and public trial and release them.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview with CHRI, Khandan, the husband of imprisoned human rights lawyer\u00a0Nasrin Sotoudeh, said he was unlawfully denied a public trial.<\/p>\n

On January 22, 2019, he and Meysami were both convicted of \u201cassembly and collusion against national security\u201d and \u201cpropaganda against the state\u201d at Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran presided by Judge Abolqasem Salavati\u2014notorious in Iran for bending to the wishes of security agencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe law says that political cases should be tried publicly in a criminal court in the presence of a jury,\u201d said Khandan. \u201cBut for years the judiciary has turned political cases into national security ones in order to try them through the revolutionary court system.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Article 168 of Iran\u2019s\u00a0Constitution, \u201cPolitical and press offenses will be tried openly and in the presence of a jury, in courts of justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

But countless activists, dissidents and other detainees held on politically motivated charges have been sentenced to prison without due process in sessions\u00a0as brief as 10 minutes\u00a0in Iran\u2019s\u00a0revolutionary court system.<\/p>\n

After posting several updates about his wife\u2019s June 2018 arrest online, Khandan was also\u00a0arrested\u00a0on September 4, 2018, and transported to Evin Prison and Tehran. He was released on bail on December 24.<\/p>\n

Sotoudeh, one of the country\u2019s top defense attorneys and human rights advocates, was arrested after\u00a0defending women\u00a0who were being being prosecuted for peacefully protesting Iran\u2019s compulsory hijab law by removing it in public. She is facing\u00a0multiple charges.<\/p>\n

Meysami remains in Evin Prison where he has been held since his arrest on July 31, 2018. The agents who raided his home confiscated\u00a0badges\u00a0that said, \u201cI am against compulsory hijab,\u201d which were then used to convict him in court.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition to the six-year prison sentence, I have been banned from carrying out any online activity for two years,\u201d Khandan told CHRI. \u201cThat means I won\u2019t be able to inform the public about my wife\u2019s situation or even exchange greeting messages with a friend or purchase things online.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khandan and Meysami had protested against being denied a public trial by refusing to show up to three of their four court sessions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey told me if I appeared at the last court session, I would be granted bail,\u201d Khandan said. \u201cSo I attended because of my circumstances and my kids\u2019 situation, even though I didn\u2019t believe in the court\u2019s legitimacy. Mr. Meysami attended, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khandan and Sotoudeh have\u00a0two children, one of whom is in grade school. Prison officials have\u00a0repeatedly denied\u00a0Sotoudeh opportunities to see her children.<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen what will happen to the children if both their parents are imprisoned at the same time.<\/p>\n

Meysami, who is also a physician, was forcibly kept in the prison clinic and put on an\u00a0IV drip\u00a0in August 2018 after he went on a prolonged hunger strike to demand justice for himself as well as Sotoudeh and Khandan.<\/p>\n

Highlighting the cases of the three activists, UN human rights experts have\u00a0called on Iran\u00a0to guarantee the rights of human rights defenders and lawyers who have been jailed for publicly supporting protests against the mandatory hijab.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe judiciary is trying to paint their cases as a national security issue when it\u2019s clearly about the Iranian people\u2019s right to freedom of expression,\u201d said Ghaemi. \u201cNo amount of spin is going to be able to conceal that fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

January 22, 2019 \u2013\u00a0Reza Khandan\u00a0and\u00a0Farhad Meysami\u00a0have both been sentenced to six years imprisonment in Iran and banned from leaving the country or engaging in online activities for two years for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[457,409],"class_list":["post-1410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights","tag-farhad-meysami","tag-reza-khandan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1410"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1412,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1410\/revisions\/1412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}