Summoning Mohammad Hossein Sepehri and replacing the court with administrative violations committees
Mohammad Hossein Sepehri, a 44-year-old teacher and physics teacher at Mashhad schools, who was summoned to the Mashhad Administrative Violations Board for participating in teachers' union protests and expressing his opinions on social media, told the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that the reasons and accusations raised by this board have no legal basis because teachers have the right to protest and strike, and some of the accusations are security-related and are considered crimes, and handling them is not within the jurisdiction of the Administrative Violations Board.
According to the summons issued by the Khorasan Razavi Education and Training Administration Board on February 10, Mr. Sepehri has been accused of participating in an illegal sit-in, leaving work during official hours, acting in a manner that violates professional standards, and insulting the leadership. On February 20, Mr. Sepehri told the campaign that the summons from the violations board has no legal basis and was issued for activities that are the right of every teacher and citizen: “This summons is either a sign of the low level of legal literacy of the violations board’s colleagues or that they came from somewhere and an institution outside of education, because the cases raised as charges in the summons, including participating in a nationwide sit-in, are teachers’ rights, and other cases, such as insulting the leadership due to my opinion and expression of opinion, were made outside the workplace and are not related to my job as a teacher or the Education and Training Department. In addition, an accusation such as insulting the leadership is a criminal offense and must be proven in a competent court.”
The charge of insulting the leader is the subject of Article 514 of the Islamic Penal Code, and according to it, anyone who insults the founder of the Islamic Republic and the position of the leader will be sentenced to imprisonment from six months to two years, and the authority to determine insult is the Islamic Revolutionary Courts. In one of the videos published on the Internet, Mohammad Hossein Sepehri, who appointed the judiciary, described Mr. Khamenei as a person and said that the result of the forty years of the Islamic Republic's rule has been nothing but destruction and ruin. These statements were also included in the subpoena of the Education Administrative Violations Board. Mr. Sepehri told the campaign that his critical statements about Mr. Khamenei's performance did not mean insult: "I expressed my opinion about his performance as the person who leads this system, and criticism is different from insult and obscenity. If criticism is supposed to mean insult, that no one can talk to another, then in this subpoena, without any court or tribunal, they considered the crime of insulting the leader proven, which is within the jurisdiction of the court."
Another accusation against this Mashhad teacher is that he left his job and refused to attend classes on November 12 and 13, coinciding with the nationwide teachers’ sit-in. During November 12 and 13, teachers in most schools and cities in Iran refused to attend classes as a sign of protest against educational policies and the security forces’ treatment of teachers. In addition to leaving his job, the Education and Training Violations Board’s summons also includes participation in the teachers’ sit-in as a separate charge. Mohammad Hossein Sepehri told the campaign: “Participating in the sit-in is for the rights of every citizen, including teachers. The accusation of leaving his job is related to the nationwide sit-in. Thousands of teachers in almost all schools in the country did not attend class as a sign of protest. Although the teachers were present in the schools and offices and no walk-outs occurred, if this is true, thousands of teachers should have been accused of administrative violations.”
The fourth charge mentioned in the summons of the Khorasan Razavi Education Administrative Violations Board is unprofessional conduct and actions related to publishing untrue material, which is documented in the video statements of Mohammad Hossein Sepehri about the Islamic Republic system that took place outside the workplace. This charge also complies with Article 698 of the Islamic Penal Code and publishing lies, which, if proven in court, can result in two months to two years of imprisonment or 74 lashes.
Security crackdowns on teachers in the Islamic Republic are not new, and in recent years, many protesting teachers have been arrested, fired, or exiled, and security crackdowns on teachers' union activities have always been a point of contention in teacher protests. After two nationwide teacher sit-ins in November and October 2018, news emerged of widespread summons of teachers to security and education security agencies. Unlike previous summonses, this time, administrative violation committees have summoned teachers for activities and accusations that are the responsibility of the judiciary, and considering it an administrative violation also opens the door for government agencies to violate teachers' rights.
Source: Human Rights
