{"id":1462,"date":"2019-05-13T17:51:13","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T17:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1462"},"modified":"2019-05-13T17:51:13","modified_gmt":"2019-05-13T17:51:13","slug":"appeals-court-upholds-lengthy-sentence-against-female-activist-for-criticizing-chief-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1462","title":{"rendered":"Appeals Court Upholds Lengthy Sentence Against Female Activist for Criticizing Chief Justice"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Number

Number of Women Political Prisoners Rising in Iran<\/p><\/div>\n

May 13, 2019 \u2013 A Tehran appeals court upheld a 7.5-year prison sentence against prominent political activist\u00a0Hengameh Shahidi\u00a0based on her social media posts in which she criticized former Chief Justice Sadegh Larijani and demanded a report on his 10-year tenure.<\/p>\n

\u201cState forces are threatened by Iranian women leading calls for peaceful reforms in the country and Hengameh Shahidi is the latest target,\u201d said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).<\/p>\n

\u201cJudicial and security officials can say and do whatever they want to citizens with no accountability while people can be imprisoned for their mere words,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Shahidi has been in\u00a0solitary confinement\u00a0since she was\u00a0detained\u00a0in June 2018, her lawyer\u00a0Mostafa Tork Hamedani\u00a0announced on May 12, 2019.<\/p>\n

On December 10, 2018, Judge Abolqasem Salavati of Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court\u00a0sentenced\u00a0her to 12 years and nine months in prison.<\/p>\n

A Tehran appeals court issued its ruling six months later after applying\u00a0Article 134\u00a0of the Islamic Penal Code, which states that in cases involving multiple convictions, one should serve no more than the maximum punishment for the charge that carries the heaviest sentence.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy client had been\u00a0sentenced\u00a0to 12 years and nine months in prison, of which seven and half years will be enforced,\u201d Hamedani\u00a0told\u00a0the state-funded Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA). \u201cThe sentence has been exactly upheld\u2026 by the revolutionary appeals court in Tehran Province.<\/p>\n

The court also banned Shahidi from membership in political groups and activities on social media for two years as well as prohibited her from leaving the country for two years.<\/p>\n

Once an advisor to former presidential candidate and Green Movement leader\u00a0Mehdi Karroubi, who has been under extrajudicial house arrest since February 2011, Shahidi was convicted of \u201cpropaganda against the state,\u201d \u201cinsulting officials\u201d and \u201cspreading falsehoods\u201d for publicly criticizing former Judiciary Chief Sadegh Larijani.<\/p>\n

On June 22, 2018, Shahidi\u00a0tweeted\u00a0a clip of her interview with Jamshid Chalangi, a TV political commentator based in the U.S., in which she accused Larijani of being \u201cworse than\u201d Judge Sadegh Khalkhali, known as Iran\u2019s \u201changing judge\u201d for ordering thousands of political prisoners to be executed in the early years after the 1979 revolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Larijani is accusing me of fighting against the state for a simple criticism and demanding a report on his 10-year tenure,\u201d she said in the interview.<\/p>\n

During Larijani\u2019s tenure (2009-2019), at least\u00a015 political prisoners died\u00a0in state custody with no one held accountable for the deaths.<\/p>\n

Journalists, activists, dissidents and others accused of criticizing state officials or policies were also handled with an iron fist, with thousands arrested and hundreds sentenced to prison for peaceful actions.<\/p>\n

In an\u00a0open letter\u00a0to Larijani on February 1, 2018, Shahidi wrote: \u201cWas it right to extend my temporary detention in solitary confinement for six months based on a lie? Was it not deplorable to set bail at 200 million tomans [about $63,000 USD at the time] for an innocent and defenseless woman?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe human rights community should pay attention to the fact that the judicial authorities succeeded in forcing me to confess to a crime I did not commit without any evidence under torture,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Prior to her sentencing, high-ranking hardline judicial officials angrily complained about the content of her social media posts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI watched her on social networks posting blatant insults against the judiciary and its officials every day and instead of surrendering herself, she posted a lot of criminal tweets,\u201d\u00a0said\u00a0former Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi on June 26, 2018.<\/p>\n

On April 4, a source with detailed knowledge of her case\u00a0told\u00a0CHRI that Shahidi\u2019s health was \u201cvery poor\u201d after being held in solitary confinement for months in Evin Prison\u2019s Ward 241, under the control of the judiciary\u2019s Security and Intelligence Center.<\/p>\n

In 2017, Shahidi, who turns 44 on May 14, was\u00a0detained\u00a0for five months after being accused of collaborating with the foreign Persian media Telegram app channel,\u00a0Amad News.<\/p>\n

\u201cHengameh Shahidi is behind bars for attempting to peacefully hold powerful officials, including the judiciary chief, accountable to the public,\u201d said Ghaemi.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer sentence is another confirmation that Iran\u2019s revolutionary court system is an instrument of political repression that the state uses to suppress free speech and deter others from engaging in activism and dissent,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

At least five women are currently serving lengthy sentences as political prisoners in Iran\u2019s Evin Prison including prominent defense attorney\u00a0Nasrin Sotoudeh\u00a0and human rights activist\u00a0Narges Mohammadi.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 13, 2019 \u2013 A Tehran appeals court upheld a 7.5-year prison sentence against prominent political activist\u00a0Hengameh Shahidi\u00a0based on her social media posts in which she criticized former Chief Justice<\/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":[480,123,481,241,167],"class_list":["post-1462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights","tag-abbas-jafari-dowlatabadi","tag-evin-prison","tag-hengameh-shahidi","tag-narges-mohammadi","tag-nasrin-sotoudeh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1462","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=1462"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1463,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1462\/revisions\/1463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}