Prison Sentences Issued for Protesting Teenagers

A number of protesting teenagers detained during nationwide protests have been sentenced to imprisonment.

Many young people and teenagers have been arrested since the beginning of nationwide protests and many of them remain indefinitely imprisoned in detention facilities. Many have also been charged with crimes they did not commit and even executed. Among the detained individuals, many are even below the legal age of majority.

Farhad Navai, Mobin Rasoltab, and Mehran Hasanzadeh are among those detained by security forces during the nationwide protests of 1401.

The verdict issued by the criminal court for these three individuals is imprisonment. Farhad Navai, a 16-year-old teenager from Mahabad, was sentenced to two years in prison by a special juvenile criminal court located in Mahabad on charges of “assembly and conspiracy to commit crimes against the country’s internal security.” Farhad was detained by security forces on November 18, 1401, and during his detention and court proceedings, he was denied access to a lawyer. The court also set a bail of 5 billion tomans for Farhad’s temporary release, which his family was unable to provide.

Additionally, the criminal court of Asnuyeh district sentenced Mobin Rasoltab to one year and Mehran Hasanzadeh to nine months in prison. Both were detained by security forces on September 27, 1401, and transferred to Urmia Prison, then transferred from Urmia Prison to Asnuyeh Prison on November 8.

Since the beginning of the protests, the detention of individuals below the legal age has drawn reactions from human rights organizations. They have also expressed their concerns in recent days about the significant increase in executions in Iran.

The Islamic Republic system, after carrying out numerous executions in recent months and killing many children by gunfire, is now suspending executions of protesters out of fear of renewed public uprising and issuing prison sentences instead.