November Protests: Five Citizens in Mahshahr Acquitted of Charges
HRANA News Agency – Nader Reihani, Nader Taeimi, Morteza Abadi, Hamid Ghobishawy, and Walid Assakereh, among those detained during the November 2019 protests, have been acquitted of the charges against them by Branch 1 of the Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office in Mahshahr.
According to HRANA, the news agency of the Human Rights Activists Network in Iran, the Mahshahr Prosecutor’s Office has issued a verdict of acquittal for Nader Reihani, Nader Taeimi, Morteza Abadi, Hamid Ghobishawy, and Walid Assakereh, five citizens detained during the November 2019 protests.
Based on this ruling, issued by Branch 1 of the Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office in Mahshahr and recently served to them, these individuals have been acquitted of charges including acting against national security, disturbing public order, and damaging government property.
All these citizens were arrested on November 30, 2019, during the November 2019 protests in Taleghani neighborhood of Mahshahr by security forces on charges including anti-government propaganda and were transferred to the Information Ministry’s detention center. After being held for an extended period in solitary confinement, they were temporarily released upon completion of interrogation with a bail of 500 million tomans until the conclusion of legal proceedings.
On December 20 of this year, Branch 1 of the Mahshahr Prosecutor’s Office issued an order to suspend prosecution of these citizens regarding the charges of “propaganda against national security, disruption of public order, and damage to government property.” The case file was referred to Branch 101 of the Criminal Court 2 in Mahshahr following the Information Ministry’s objection to the issued ruling, and ultimately an acquittal verdict was rendered.
These individuals had previously been arrested and convicted in 2017. Iman Soleimani, the lawyer representing these citizens, told HRANA regarding the course of this case: “Although my clients had served their 8-month sentence from their previous case file, the Information Ministry again referred to charges from their previous case in this new file.”
November 2019 Nationwide Protests
The November protests refer to a series of nationwide demonstrations that began on Friday, November 15, 2019, with the announcement of an unprecedented increase in gasoline prices in dozens of Iranian cities with an unprecedented presence of protesters in the streets and continued for several days. Mohammad Javad Kolivand, representative of Karaj in parliament, stated that these protests occurred in 719 locations across the country. Sayed Hossein Naghavi Hosseini, then spokesperson of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of parliament, reported that approximately 7,000 people were arrested during the recent protests. According to reports from human rights organizations, hundreds of people also lost their lives as a result of these violent protests.
You can read HRANA’s full report on these protests titled “Bloody November” at this link.
Source: HRANA
