January Protests: Roya Saghiri Transferred to Tabriz Prison to Serve Sentence

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – On August 25, 2018, Roya Saghiri, a University of Tabriz student and one of those detained during the January protests, was transferred to Tabriz Prison to serve her sentence of twenty-three months’ discretionary imprisonment, ruled in Branch Two of the Tabriz Revolutionary Court.

On July 11, 2018, HRANA reported on the upholding of this sentence by the East Azerbaijan Appeals Court.

Branch Two of the Tabriz Revolutionary Court sentenced Saghiri, as well as Nariman Validokht, to eight months’ discretionary imprisonment for the charge of “Propaganda against the regime,” pursuant to Articles 500 and 514 of the Islamic Penal Code, passed in 1979, and Articles 134 and 215 of the same code passed in 2013. Saghiri’s sentence for that charge was relatively lenient on account of her clean criminal record but was compounded by an additional charge, against both Saghiri and Validokht, of “Insulting the Supreme Leader,” carrying a fifteen-month prison sentence.

In another case tried by Branch 103 of the Tabriz Criminal Court, presided by Judge Vatankhah, Saghiri was sentenced to a one-year suspended imprisonment term as well as ten lashings for the charges of “Disrupting the public peace through participation in an illegal gathering” and “Appearing in public without the Islamic veil by way of unveiling in the streets”.

A large number of participants in recent protests, referred to as the January protests, were detained and interrogated across the country. The protests resulted in the death of 25 individuals and the detention of around five thousand.

Of the January protests, Ministry of the Interior Rahmani Fazli said, “A number of protests took place in 100 Iranian cities; in forty of those cities, the protests turned violent.”

Some of the January Protest detainees were released on bail to await their trials while others were transferred to prison. The precise whereabouts and fates of a number of protestors are still unknown.

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