A Sabzevar Student Sentenced to Prison and Lashing

“Mojtaba Dadashi,” a final-year student at Hakim Sabzevar University, has been sentenced to prison and lashing.

Yesterday, this Sabzevar-based student announced via a video posted on his Twitter account that he had been sentenced to three years in prison and 74 lashes.

Mr. Dadashi said in part of this video: I am being tried for criticizing the reformist and principalist officials of the system and the Supreme Leader with unrelated charges of “propaganda against the system, insulting the leadership, and insulting heads of branches,” and have now been sentenced in the most brutal way possible to three years in prison and 74 lashes.

According to the Campaign to Defend Political and Civil Prisoners, Mojtaba Dadashi was arrested last month of Bahman after appearing at Branch Three of the Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office in Sabzevar and transferred to the county’s prison. This final-year student of Political Science at Hakim Sabzevar University was released three days after his arrest by posting a 200 million-toman bail temporarily until the end of legal proceedings from Sabzevar County Prison.

These sentences are being issued for critics of the leader of the Islamic Republic at a time when Ayatollah Khamenei said at the beginning of 1397 in his speech in the city of Mashhad that in Iran “freedom of speech exists and people are free in expressing different views.”

Source: Voice of America