Baha'i citizen teaching jewel sentenced to five years in prison in Tehran
The "teaching jewel" of Baha'i citizens in Tehran was sentenced to five years in prison by a lower court.
Negin Tadashidi was sentenced to five years in prison on Wednesday, June 10, by a court of first instance in Tehran on charges of "paying tuition for a language class to an Afghan citizen, providing psychological counseling, and using notes she had written in her personal notebook to teach others."
This Baha'i citizen, publishing a note on his personal Instagram page, while referring to the notification of the 5-year prison sentence to his lawyer, also referred to the charges brought against him in the indictment against this Baha'i citizen, which are listed in the indictment as "paying language class fees to an Afghan citizen, providing behavioral, sexual, and economic psychological counseling, and also writing the following sentence in his personal notebook: The people of this region need education."
Negin Tadashidi was arrested by security forces on November 25, 2017, and was released on December 2 of the same year after completing the interrogation period and completing the case file by posting bail until the completion of the trial.
On Saturday, June 15, six Baha'i citizens living in Tabriz, named "Khairollah Bakhshi", "Monika Alizadeh", "Kambiz Misaghi", "Shabnam Essakhani", "Farzad Bahadori", and "Shahriar Khodapanah", who had previously been tried by Judge Rahim Hamalbar, head of the first branch of the Revolutionary Court, were sentenced to a total of 36 months in prison.
The US State Department's Special Advisor on Religious Minorities in the Middle East, South and Central Asia has criticized the continued persecution of minorities in Iran and called on the Islamic Republic to immediately release all prisoners of conscience and respect religious freedom.
Mr. Knox Timms, speaking at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) meeting in Washington on Tuesday, May 1, said: “The Iranian regime oppresses its Baha’i citizens to a degree that is unmatched by the treatment of this minority anywhere else in the world. According to statistics, as of just two months ago, seventy Baha’is were still being held in Iranian prisons simply for being Baha’is. The US State Department has been documenting these issues on a regular basis. This includes ongoing verbal attacks against Baha’is, closure of their businesses, and denial of basic services.”
Source: Voice of America
