Majid Khademi: The Ordeals of an Activist Handed Lengthy Prison Term

Iranwire – Majid Khademi, a 32-year-old activist from Behbahan in Khuzestan Province, was sentenced to 10 years and three months in prison after entering a plea of no contest.

The Mahshahr Revolutionary Court handed down the sentence on charges of “propaganda against the system,” “membership in hostile groups,” “disturbance of public order,” “damage to public property,” “acting against national security” and “rebellion,” according to court documents seen by IranWire. 

Khademi will have to serve the highest prison sentence, which is five years and six months.

He was also imposed two years of exile in Taft, Yazd province, and was banned from joining any political or civil group and from traveling abroad for two years.

An informed source told IranWire that Khademi, an electrical engineering student who was expelled from Azad Behbahan University, has been arrested and released twice since the November 2019 protests over the sudden rise in the price of gasoline.

He endured more than 21 months of incarceration in prisons in Behbahan and Ahvaz, as well as detention centers under the Ministry of Intelligence, during which his jailers inflicted him physical and psychological torture.

After his initial arrest in 2019, Khademi endured over 20 months of imprisonment in Behbahan prison during which he didn’t receive detailed information about his case and was not able to choose his own lawyer, according to the source. The judge in charge of the case granted him bail and set the bail amount at 6 billion tomans ($120,000) before agreeing to reduce the amount to 3.5 billion tomans ($70,000.).

“The family mortgaged all their agricultural land to the government, but the value of the land was intentionally underestimated by the evaluator sent by the authorities,” the source said.

After “considerable struggle,” the family finally managed to gather the requested amount, and Khademi was temporarily released from Behbahan prison in June 2021.

But Khademi sought the counsel of two human rights lawyers, a move used as a pretext by the authorities to arrest him during a court session held on June 22, 2021, the source said. 

He spent a month in solitary confinement before being transferred to Shiban prison in Ahvaz, where dangerous criminals are held in abysmal conditions.

“During the approximately 50 days he spent in Shiban prison, Majid constantly said that he endured more torture than during the 20 months he spent in Behbahan prison,” the source said. “He developed skin diseases, experienced facial hair loss, suffered from infections in his ears and eyes, and was denied any medical care.”

Khademi was subsequently released from detention in exchange for admitting he had accepted money from foreign and terrorist groups.

Now, at the age of 32, this political prisoner is preparing to return to prison for a third time to serve a five-year-and-a-half sentence.