Iran
Narges Mohammadi, right, pictured at a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland on June 9, 2008. File photo: Keystone/Magali Girardin/AP
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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Amnesty International and the European Union have condemned a new prison sentence given to an Iranian human rights activist and journalist, stemming from protests and complaints she made while serving a previous jail sentence.
Narges Mohammadi was sentenced to 30 months in jail and 80 lashes, her lawyer told AFP on Thursday.
During her previous detention, which ended when she was released early in October 2020, Mohammadi was moved from Tehran’s Evin prison to another facility, Zanjan, in the northwest of the country.
She had filed a complaint about this “illegal transfer,” according to her lawyer Mahmoud Behzadi-Rad. “Instead of examining her complaint, justice officials opened another case against my client," he said.
Amnesty International on Friday called the new sentence “outrageous.”
According to Amnesty, Mohammadi staged protests and publicly spoke out about abuses in prison. The rights monitor called on Iranian authorities “to immediately quash human rights defender Narges Mohammadi’s conviction and sentence, which is based solely on her peacefully exercising her rights to freedom of expression and assembly” and investigate her allegations of abuse and torture during her imprisonment.
The European Union called the prison and flogging sentence a “worrying development” and urged Tehran to review her case.
Mohammadi, 49, was arrested in May 2015 while she was the spokeswoman for the Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran. In 2016 she was sentenced to 10 years in jail. She was released at the urging of the United Nations after she began showing symptoms of the coronavirus. She has a pre-existing lung condition.
Narges Mohammadi was sentenced to 30 months in jail and 80 lashes, her lawyer told AFP on Thursday.
During her previous detention, which ended when she was released early in October 2020, Mohammadi was moved from Tehran’s Evin prison to another facility, Zanjan, in the northwest of the country.
She had filed a complaint about this “illegal transfer,” according to her lawyer Mahmoud Behzadi-Rad. “Instead of examining her complaint, justice officials opened another case against my client," he said.
Amnesty International on Friday called the new sentence “outrageous.”
According to Amnesty, Mohammadi staged protests and publicly spoke out about abuses in prison. The rights monitor called on Iranian authorities “to immediately quash human rights defender Narges Mohammadi’s conviction and sentence, which is based solely on her peacefully exercising her rights to freedom of expression and assembly” and investigate her allegations of abuse and torture during her imprisonment.
The European Union called the prison and flogging sentence a “worrying development” and urged Tehran to review her case.
Mohammadi, 49, was arrested in May 2015 while she was the spokeswoman for the Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran. In 2016 she was sentenced to 10 years in jail. She was released at the urging of the United Nations after she began showing symptoms of the coronavirus. She has a pre-existing lung condition.
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