Ali Mozaffari, Student Activist, Sentenced to 30 Months in Prison

Ali Mozaffari, a student activist at the University of Tehran, has been sentenced to 30 months in prison by the Tehran Province Court of Appeals.

According to reports published by human rights networks, Branch 36 of the Tehran Province Court of Appeals reduced the sentence issued against Ali Mozaffari, a student activist, from eight years to 30 months.

Mozaffari is the third University of Tehran student to receive a final conviction sentence to imprisonment. He was previously tried in Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court on charges including “assembly and conspiracy to commit crimes against national security,” “propaganda activities against the system,” and “insult to the Supreme Leader,” and was convicted of a total of eight years in prison.

Based on the issued court ruling, the charges filed are described as “participation in several student gatherings inside the university.”

This student activist was arrested during the nationwide protests in December 2017 along with several other students by agents of the Tehran Ministry of Intelligence.

Last June, Human Rights Watch issued a statement indicating that Iranian authorities have intensified the suppression of protesting students by issuing prison sentences and creating restrictions on peaceful activities.

The Middle East Director at Human Rights Watch also called on Hassan Rouhani, the President of Iran, in this statement to order the ministries under his supervision to end the treatment against students, based on the civil rights promises he made during his election campaign.

According to a 2018 Amnesty International report, more than seven thousand people, including protest participants, students, journalists, women’s rights activists, environmental activists, labor activists, and ethnic and religious minority rights activists in Iran, were arrested and hundreds were sentenced to imprisonment.

The U.S. State Department has repeatedly condemned violent and widespread suppression of protesters and opponents of the regime under various pretexts, as well as repeated and continuous violations of the rights of Iranian citizens by the ruling regime.

Source: Voice of America