New Charges Against Narges Mohammadi Read to Her in Zanjan Prison

Narges Mohammadi, vice president and spokesperson of the Center for Defenders of Human Rights and imprisoned civil activist who was recently transferred from Evin Prison to Zanjan Prison following beatings, now faces new charges in two separate cases.

The new charges against this political prisoner, who is currently serving her sentence in Zanjan Prison, were read to her on Saturday, March 24, in the presence of the prosecutor of Branch 2 of Zanjan’s District Court, the head and deputy of information protection, and the head of the women’s ward of the prison, in the form of two separate cases in the women’s ward of the prison.

Based on available information, Narges Mohammadi is charged in the first case with “propaganda activity against the system” and “assembly and conspiracy with the intent to act against national security,” and in the second case with “insulting government officials, including Gholamreza Ziaii, head of Evin Prison, and making false accusations of torture and beating by him,” as well as “disrupting prison order by singing loudly.” It should be noted that this reading of charges took place without her being sent to the district court and without following legal procedures, and occurred in the women’s ward of the prison.

It is worth mentioning that the publication of political statements, organization of educational classes, and protest sit-ins in the women’s ward are among the prosecutor’s bases for the charges read to this political prisoner in the first case, and these two cases were formed for her in District Court 33 of Tehran.

Narges Mohammadi, an imprisoned civil activist in Iran who has been in prison since mid-May 2015, was violently transferred from Evin Prison to Zanjan Prison after a sit-in with seven other female prisoners in protest of the November killings.

This imprisoned human rights activist was sentenced in June 2017 to sixteen years in prison on charges of “assembly and conspiracy with the intent to commit a crime against national security,” “propaganda activity against the system,” and “forming and managing an illegal group called Legam,” of which only ten years would be enforceable according to Article 134 of the Islamic Penal Code.

Narges Mohammadi, who is serving her sentence in prison, criticized in a letter to the Tehran prosecutor in December 2018 the issuance of a judicial order regarding the reduction of her phone contact time with her children and announced that in protest, she would refrain from calling her children.

Previously, the representative of the United States at the periodic session reviewing the situation of human rights in Iran, attended by representatives of 32 other countries, called for the release of prisoners of conscience, including Narges Mohammadi and Nasrin Sotoudeh, from prison.

Source: Voice of America