Iranian journalists who covered Mahsa Amini’s death face five years in prison

The Guardian – Two young female journalists who were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for reporting on the death of Mahsa Amini have been cleared of charges of collaborating with the United States government but will still spend up to five more years behind bars, the Iranian authorities have announced.

Niloofar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi were arrested in 2022 after reporting on the death and funeral of Amini, the young Kurdish woman who died in police custody in 2022, sparking the nationwide Women, Life, Freedom protests.

Hamedi and Mohammadi were initially charged with “collusion and assembly against national security” and “propaganda activity against the regime” and sentenced to 13 and 12 years respectively.

In January they were released from prison after 17 months in detention and their sentences have now been reduced to five years each after a court acquitted them of further charges of “collaboration with the United States”.

On Sunday, an Iranian judicial spokesperson, Asghar Jahangir, said the five-year prison sentences would now be imposed but did not indicate when, meaning that the two women will have to wait to see when the authorities will implement the court ruling.

The families and lawyers representing the two women said they had hoped they would be pardoned and allowed to remain free, after state media reported last year that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei intended to pardon “tens of thousands” of prisoners, including those arrested during the Women, Life, Freedom protests.

Skylar Thompson, director of advocacy at the US-based organisation Human Rights Activists in Iran, said: “The regime’s refusal to grant these journalists the 2023 amnesty represents a blatant disregard for justice.”

A Tehran-based journalist said on condition of anonymity: “We had all hoped that Niloofar and Elaheh are pardoned soon and are shocked by the announcement. We don’t know what will happen next or when, and where they will be taken to.

“Now that they have made this announcement, this in itself is a sentence. They are psychologically torturing them and their families.”

Human rights activists said that two years on, the regime continues to target and punish those who took part in the nationwide protests that followed Amini’s death.

Iran has already executed 10 protesters, including Gholamreza Rasaei, who was hanged in August after being convicted of killing a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

According to Human Rights Watch, relatives of people killed, executed or imprisoned during the Women, Life, Freedom protests have also been arrested, threatened and harassed by the regime.

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Iran Supreme Court orders retrial of labor activist sentenced to death

JURISTnews – Iran’s Supreme Court ordered a retrial of labor rights activist Sharifeh Mohammadi who had been sentenced to death for treason, according to local media that spoke to her lawyer on Saturday. The order lifts her death sentence while she awaits a retrial.

In the Revolutionary Court conviction, her alleged membership in the National Labor Unions Assistance Coordination Committee (LUACC) was included as evidence, even though the LUACC is a legally established independent labor union in Iran. Mohammadi claimed that she had not been a member of the LUACC for 10 years.

Being a member of the International Labor Organization, a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), Iran is obliged to guarantee the right to form trade unions and to strike.

Mohammadi was sentenced to death by the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Rasht in July 2024. She was first arrested by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence in December 2023 and convicted for “armed rebellion against the state” based on allegations that she was a member of the banned Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KPIK). Mohammadi denied allegations that she was ever a member of KPIK.

According to the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), the Islamic Revolutionary Court uses “national security-related charges to punish and suppress peaceful dissent”. The Revolutionary Court’s jurisdiction under Article 303 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is broad and can include political crimes.

According to the Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA), at least 811 people were executed in Iran between October 10, 2023 and October 8, 2024. Inmates in over 20 Iranian prisons have been staging protests, including hunger strikes, against capital punishment for several months.

The Campaign for the Defense of Sharifeh Mohammadi was founded and human rights defenders, Narsrin Sotoudeh and Farhad announced going on hunger strike to urge the revocation of Mohammadi’s death sentence in Oct 2023.

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Joint Statement: Call for Urgent Action as Executions Reach Highest Number in the Last Decade

In a statement released today, ahead of the World Day Against the Death Penalty Human Rights Activists (HRA) and The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran (ABC) condemn the alarming surge in executions in Iran, which have reached their highest level in the last decade—at least 811 reported executions in the past year alone as reported by the organizations.

Iran has long maintained one of the highest execution rates in the world, and in recent years, the use of the death penalty has alarmingly intensified. In 2023, Iran accounted for 75% of all recorded executions globally.

From October 2023 to October 2024, at least 811 executions have been carried out, marking a sharp increase from the previous year and reaching levels not seen in nearly a decade. In August alone, at least 97 executions were reported, 45 of which were for drug-related offenses—charges that do not meet the threshold of “most serious crimes” under international law. This year also marks the highest number of women executed in the past decade, with 23 women being put to death. 

Research consistently demonstrates that the death penalty lacks any measurable deterrent effect on crime rates. The widespread use of the death penalty in Iran is not only a grave violation of the right to life, enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), but is also emblematic of the systemic failures and corruption within the judiciary. The death penalty in Iran is routinely imposed following trials that are marred by serious due process violations, including the use of coerced forced confessions extracted under torture as a primary source of conviction in the majority of cases alongside the regular denial of access to legal representation. The Iranian judiciary, far from being an independent arbiter of justice, has instead become an instrument of state repression, using the death penalty to silence dissent and instill fear among the population.

We call on the Iranian authorities to immediately establish a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, in line with repeated calls from the United Nations and civil society organizations, and to address the structural flaws within the judiciary that enable these grave violations. 

The international community must hold Iran accountable, call for a moratorium, and support efforts to ensure that justice is not used as a tool of oppression, but as a means to protect and uphold the fundamental rights of all individuals.

 

Signatories

Human Rights Activists (HRA)

Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran (ABC)

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HRA’s Pasdaran Documentation Project (PDP) Looks at Bloody Friday Two Years On

On Friday, 30 September 2022, Zahedan, a city in Sistan and Baluchistan province, witnessed the deadliest incident of the Woman, Life, Freedom protests, which came to be known as “Bloody Friday.”

Amid the wider Woman, Life, Freedom movement and growing anger over the sexual assault of a local girl by police, protesters and bystanders were met with lethal force from security personnel, who used tear gas, live ammunition, and metal pellets.

The majority of victims were shot in the head, heart, neck, and torso.

The government claimed that many civilians were killed in the crossfire between attackers and security forces. However, several official reports indicate that footage analysis reveals security forces and plainclothes agents firing indiscriminately from rooftops at a gathering of protesters. 

At least 100 people lost their lives on Bloody Friday, including at least 15 children. 

Kurdish and Baloch citizens witnessed the bloodiest crackdowns during the Woman, Life, Freedom protests: over half of the total number of people killed came from the Baloch and Kurdish provinces, with children from these minority groups comprising 63% of the recorded child victims.

Now, two years after these violent events, no accountability or justice has been delivered for the victims.

With the anniversary upon us, Bloody Friday remains a symbol of broader repression. It not only underscores the Iranian regime’s willingness to use excessive force with impunity but also highlights the systemic marginalization of the Baloch minority, further compounded by economic deprivation, political exclusion, religious discrimination, and cultural repression.

HRA’s Pasdaran Documentation Project (PDP), launching in October, is an unprecedented database that offers the most comprehensive overview to date of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), documenting its structure, chain of command, and human rights and international law violations perpetrated by the IRGC.

In the case of Bloody Friday, through PDP, several breaches have been identified, some of which trigger individual criminal accountability, extending beyond the state’s responsibility under international human rights law.

Types of Violations

Right to Life

Freedom of Assembly and Association

Freedom from Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

Right to be Free from Discrimination

Possible International Crimes

Murder as a crime against humanity

Persecution as a crime against humanity, based on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, or gender grounds

Crime against humanity of an inhumane act of a similar character, intentionally causing great suffering

IRGC Involvement 

The PDP database also identifies the specific IRGC units and personnel involved in events that led to severe human rights abuses, such as Bloody Friday. By tracing the individuals responsible for these incidents, the PDP provides a more detailed analysis of atrocities like torture, unlawful killings, and helps attribute direct accountability. During the Zahedan crackdown, where security forces used live ammunition, tear gas, and metal pellets against protesters, several IRGC units were involved, including the Kush County IRGC and the Quds Base Southeast, among others. These forces played a significant role in the violent suppression, firing indiscriminately at civilians and furthering the cycle of repression.

Continued Documentation 

In addition to the analysis conducted by PDP, HRA’s Spreading Justice platform continuously tracks individuals responsible for human rights violations in Iran. This platform has identified key figures involved in the Bloody Friday crackdown:

Hossein Modarres-Khiabani: Governor of Sistan and Baluchestan during the 2022 protests and head of the Provincial Security Council. He labeled the Bloody Friday protesters as terrorists and separatists and was directly involved in ordering and directing serious human rights abuses. He had direct oversight of the Iranian security forces.

Ahmad Taheri: Head of Iran’s Law Enforcement Forces (LEF) in Sistan and Baluchestan. Like Khiabani, he had direct authority over the security forces that violently responded to the protests.

Mahmoud Saadati: Police Commander of Zahedan, who commanded security forces to use lethal weapons against protesters. On October 27, 2022, he admitted to the negligence of certain officers.

Mohammad Karami: Commander of the IRGC’s Quds Base in the southeastern According to reports from HRA, units under the IRGC Ground Forces, including those under Karami’s command, played a significant role in the suppression of unarmed protesters. Karami labeled the detained protesters as “armed criminals” and promised to air their confessions. One such confession was released just a few hours later.

Ahmad Shafahi: Commander of Salman Revolutionary Guard Corps in Sistan and Baluchestan Province. He had direct control of the IRGC and the Basij during Bloody Friday. He is responsible for violent actions against peaceful protestors, including against children.

Abuzar Mehdi Nakhai: The Governor of Zahedan and the Head of the Security Council. As the governor he was directly responsible for directing security forces in committing brutal acts against protestors 

Zahedan’s Bloody Friday has become a symbol of the broader struggle of the Iranian people against government oppression. The massacre is a stark reminder of the regime’s willingness to use excessive force against its citizens, particularly in marginalized regions like Sistan and Baluchistan. 

Accurate documentation is essential to securing justice and accountability. HRA hopes that our resources and analyses will aid civil society, states, and other stakeholders to pursue and initiate accountability efforts.

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