Protesting Student Summoned to Serve 5-Year Prison Sentence for Demonstrating Against Ukrainian Plane Downing
Mostafa Hashemi Zadeh, a civil engineering student at the University of Tehran who was arrested on January 16 following his participation in a memorial ceremony for the victims of the downed Ukrainian aircraft, has been summoned to serve his 5-year prison sentence.
Islamic student associations under the name United Students announced on Thursday by posting a message on their Telegram page: “He has been repeatedly threatened by interrogators with death via air embolism and then being dumped in an unknown location.”
The report states: “He was told multiple times that they would kill him first thing in the morning unless he provided the confessions they wanted recorded in the interrogation report.”
United Students further stated that after his arrest and transfer to court, the judge explicitly declared upon entering the session and taking his seat that he had already issued his verdict “in the morning and imposed the harshest punishment.”
Hashemi Zadeh said in a tweet published in May of this year: “Due to my participation in a student gathering in December 2019 in the University of Tehran campus and my protest against the downing of the Ukrainian aircraft and the manner of its crash, I was sentenced by Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court to 5 years of imprisonment on charges of conspiracy and assembly against national security, and 1 year of imprisonment and 74 lashes on charges of disrupting public order and peace as the primary punishment, as well as 2 years of prohibition from entering student dormitories and 3 months of free public service at Niayesh Psychiatric Hospital in Tehran.”
Previously, reports had also been published about imprisonment sentences for protesters against the downing of the Ukrainian aircraft by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Source: Radio Farda
