Shabtabnews In this dark night, I have lost my way – Arise from a corner, oh you the star of guidance.
HRW – People in Iran are confronting multiple crises. A sustained economic crisis has harmed the livelihoods of millions of Iranians, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Broad US economic sanctions have caused serious hardships for ordinary Iranians and threaten their right to health. At the center of Iranian residents’ struggles is an unaccountable and deeply repressive state. Iranian authorities ignore or punish peaceful dissent and have launched a sustained crackdown on civil society, from labor activists, lawyers and human rights defenders to journalists and even former senior political leaders. In November 2019, security forces used excessive and unlawful lethal force in confronting large-scale protests and have held no officials accountable while sentencing several people to death after unfair trials. Human Rights Watch’s Iran blog will use this space to highlight such official repression and civil society activists’ attempts to push for respect for human rights during this tumultuous period.
On March 14, Amir Raisian, the lawyer of student activist Hasti Amiri, posted on his Twitter account that branch 26 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court has sentenced his client to one year in prison and a two year ban on participating in student gatherings and staying at the university other than attending to classes.
Raisian added that authorities convicted Amiri, who is a student at the Allameh Tabatabai university in Tehran, on the charge of “propaganda against the state” for her participation in an International Women’s Day protest in 2021 and for her activism against the death penalty. According to social media posts by Amiri herself, her sentence also included authorities’ confiscation of her cell phone, a ban on joining political and social parties, and a prohibition on her participating in all gatherings, including online ones, for two years.
According to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), on January 3 authorities from Iran’s security police entered Amiri’s house to arrest her. Because she was not home, they informed her family that she had to appear before branch 2 of the Evin prosecutor’s office on January 9. Amiri was charged there and detained for a day until authorities released her on bail, pending her final trial.
Over the past five years, Iranian authorities have increased repression against student activists. Currently, there are several students activists convicted to prison terms or threatened with being barred from continuing their education, a long-established punishment that the government uses to curtail and punish peaceful student activism.
