The 7-year prison sentence and 74 lashes for student activist Parisa Rafiei was upheld by the appeals court.
The appeals court confirmed the seven-year prison sentence and 74 lashes handed to student activist Parisa Rafiei.
Parisa Rafiei's lawyer, Saeed Khalili, wrote on his Instagram page on Wednesday, October 25, that his client's sentence "to seven years in prison and 74 lashes was confirmed by Branch 36 of the Court of Appeals."
According to the lawyer, "the verdict was upheld by the Court of Appeals despite all the legal objections."
Civil activist Safieh Qarabaghi also wrote on Twitter about Ms. Rafiei's recent sentence that judicial authorities have "without holding a court session and in absentia" confirmed the sentence of 7 years of imprisonment, 74 lashes, and a two-year ban on leaving the country and being banned from membership in political groups of Parisa Rafiei, a trade union activist at the University of Tehran.
During the nationwide protests in Iran that began on Thursday, January 27, 2017 and spread to more than 72 cities in Iran, approximately 100 students were arrested across Iran. Ms. Parisa Rafiei was arrested in March along with a number of other students following these protests.
After being sentenced to seven years in prison in Adibehesht this year, Parisa Rafiei, a union and student activist, addressed the conditions of Iranian political activists in detention in an open letter.
He wrote that security officers, the Ministry of Intelligence, and the IRGC Intelligence Unit, inflict inhumane and violent forms of torture on prisoners, especially female prisoners; violence that is widely used, along with psychological games, to extract confessions and build cases for political activists.
In recent days, student activist Fereshteh Toosi was sentenced to 18 months in prison on charges of "propaganda against the regime through participation in the special Student Day program of the Islamic Association of Free-thinking Students of this university," which was held in 2016.
Asal Mohammadi is also another labor and student activist who has been sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Human Rights Watch and the United States have condemned the repression and imprisonment of protesting students in Iran.
Human Rights Watch recently issued a statement stating that Iranian authorities have intensified their repression of protesting students by issuing prison sentences and placing restrictions on peaceful activities.
Source: Voice of America
