Student protesting downing of Ukrainian plane summoned to serve 5-year prison sentence

Islamic organizations under the name United Students announced on Thursday in a message on their Telegram page: "He has been repeatedly threatened by the interrogator with being killed with an air rifle and then being abandoned in an unknown location."

The report says: "He was told several times that he would be killed first thing in the morning unless the confessions they wanted were recorded in the interrogation sheet."

The United Students further says that after his arrest and delivery to the court, the judge, upon entering the session and taking his seat, explicitly announced that he had "issued his verdict this morning and sentenced him to the severest punishment."

Mr. Hashemizadeh tweeted in May of this year, "For participating in a student rally in January 2019 on the campus of Tehran University and protesting the downing of a Ukrainian plane and the manner in which it crashed, I was sentenced by Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court to five years of imprisonment on charges of collusion and gathering against national security, one year of imprisonment and 74 lashes on charges of disturbing public order and peace as the main punishment, and a two-year ban on entering the student dormitory and three months of free and public service at Tehran's Niayesh Psychiatric Hospital."

There have previously been reports of prison sentences for protesters against the downing of a Ukrainian plane by the Revolutionary Guards.