Despite international outcry over continued detention of environmental activists, case hearing postponed until next year

While international protests against the Islamic Republic continue over the continued arrest of environmental activists in Iran, domestic media reported that the hearing of the environmental activists' case has been postponed until 2019.

The state-run IRNA news agency reported on Sunday, March 16, that the reason for postponing the review of this case until the new year was that it was in the "final days of the year" and that the judge of Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court was responsible for handling the "case of defendants in financial institutions" in the Special Court for Economic Corruption.

An exact date for the hearing of this case in 2019 has not yet been announced.

According to this report, five group court sessions and three individual court sessions have been held so far for the human rights activists accused in this case, with one of the detained environmental activists, Niloufar Bayani, not present in three of the court sessions. The charges against Murad Tahbaz and Niloufar Bayani have also been heard in three individual court sessions.

These meetings are being held in a situation where it was previously reported that environmental activists were not allowed to have lawyers of their own choosing and that they were only allowed to speak to lawyers approved by the judiciary. However, according to Kazem Hosseini, one of the environmental activists' lawyers, "the officers did not allow the lawyers to speak to them (the environmental activists) and generally they only communicated with their clients by saying hello."

Niloufar Bayani, Hooman Jokar, Sam Rajabi, Morad Tahbaz, Abdolreza Kouhpayeh, Sepideh Kashani, Amirhossein Khaleghi, and Taher Ghadirian are the defendants in the environmental case in Iran.

The environmental activists were arrested last year and their trial began about a year later. Three of them are accused of "espionage" and four are accused of "corruption on earth." One is also accused of "acting against national security."

However, the process of investigating the cases of environmental activists in Iran continues while concerns about the torture of these activists have increased, so much so that the international community, including the UN Environment Office, has issued a statement expressing concern about the situation of environmental activists detained in Iran and the conditions of their trial, and has called on the Iranian government to support people who have dedicated their lives to protecting the environment.

Source: Voice of America