Iranian court sentences Kurdish language teacher to 11 years

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Iranian judiciary sentenced a Kurdish language teacher and civil activist to 11 years in jail, a human rights monitor reported on Sunday.

Soma Pourmohammadi’s trial on the charge of “forming groups against national security” began on Wednesday in a Sanandaj branch of the revolutionary court. Three days later, she was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment to be served in a prison in Kermanshah, according to Hengaw Organization for Human Rights.

She was also sentenced to one year of suspended imprisonment by a Sanandaj criminal court for “disrupting national security.”

Pourmohammadi is a Kurdish language teacher and member of the Nojin Cultural Association, an organization that offers Kurdish language and literature courses. She was detained in January 2022 while enquiring about her detained husband at a Sanandaj court and was released on bail after 27 days.

The co-founder of Nojin Cultural Association, Zara Mohammadi, was arrested in 2019. She was teaching Kurdish to hundreds of children in and around Sanandaj. 

Mohammadi was charged with “establishing a committee and group that is against the stability and security of the system” and sentenced to five years in prison in February 2021. She began serving her sentence in January 2022 and was released in February 2023 for unknown reasons.