Head of Yazd City Council Received Lashing Verdict but Says He Won’t Stay Silent

The head of Yazd City Council has been sentenced to lashing and a cash fine on charges of “insult, spreading false information, and slander.” Last year, he pursued the removal of the suspension of Sepanta Niknam’s membership in Yazd City Council. He has demanded that his sentence be carried out and said he is not willing to “keep his mouth shut.”

Gholamali Sefid, head of Yazd City Council, has been sentenced to 37 lashes and a fine of one million rials. Last year, following the suspension of Sepanta Niknam’s ruling by the Guardian Council, a Zoroastrian member of Yazd City Council, Sefid pursued the removal of this restriction.

The complainant against the head of Yazd City Council is Ali-Asghar Bagheri. Last year, after the announcement of municipal election results and the election of Sepanta Niknam to this council, and when the Guardian Council confirmed his membership, Bagheri filed a complaint with the Supreme Administrative Court. As a result of this complaint, Sepanta Niknam’s membership in Yazd City Council was annulled. This ruling was reversed after weeks and in the face of numerous protests and with the pursuit of the government, some members of parliament, and also the efforts of the head of Yazd City Council.

Gholamali Sefid’s sentence is suspended for one year due to his advanced age. However, in an interview with the “Jamaran” website, he preferred that his sentence be carried out, saying that next year his age will be even greater and that he “will not” close his mouth. Ali-Asghar Bagheri’s complaint against Gholamali Sefid apparently stems from a speech in which the head of Yazd City Council referred to Ali-Asghar Bagheri as an “extremist” individual. Ali-Asghar Bagheri also filed a complaint, claiming he was “insulted.”

Gholamali Sefid says Ali-Asghar Bagheri publishes a weekly bulletin at Yazd’s Friday prayers in which he speaks ill of “regime figures” including Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mohammad Khatami, Hassan Rouhani, and “the Imam’s children,” “puts their names on it and depicts their faces in a bad way.” He criticized that despite all this and the fact that Ali-Asghar Bagheri “does whatever he wants,” “no one says anything to him.”

He also complained about a story that Islamic Republic Radio and Television broadcast. According to the head of Yazd City Council, Islamic Republic Radio and Television aired a telephone conversation in a television program by showing his image as “chief executive of the Haza al-A’imma Cultural Charity Foundation,” with a person from Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari in which this person claimed to have worked for the mentioned foundation and “this foundation did not pay him” and “now a number of workers have become unemployed.”

Gholamali Sefid said this story is completely “fabricated” and not even a single sentence of it is true because he had no contractors, never been in Polzahab, and does not know this person. He filed a complaint after the broadcast of this program. However, the judge “issued a non-prosecution order.”

The head of Yazd City Council questioned why saying that a person is “extremist” should be considered “spreading false information” and “insult” and he should receive a lashing verdict, but the issues that radio and television broadcast about him are given a non-prosecution order?

Source: DW