She is the daughter of Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh, a former Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade and current advisor to the Oil Minister.

In January, the Judiciary system sentenced Shabnam Nematzadeh to 20 years in prison and 70 lashes for selling expired medicine. She was also ordered to return stolen properties and deprived of all government services. Now, the corrupt Judiciary system identified her as a harmless individual while diagnosing political prisoners and prisoners of conscience as hazardous.

Who Is Shabnam Nematzadeh?

She was a medicine importer who hoarded essential medications in warehouses to sell them at several times the price. In 2009, this Aghazadeh [child of official] established a medicine company and managed to obtain permission for importing medication.

In August 2018, the discovery of a medicine warehouse of Shabnam Nematzadeh’s company raised controversy. She claimed that the depot was a place for preserving expired medicine and the general directorate of medicine was informed about the issue. However, Nematzadeh didn’t clarify why she had stockpiled a huge amount of expired medicine.

Later and simultaneously with the third session of court, another warehouse of Nematzadeh was discovered in Karaj county.

In this context, Rasa Pharmed company, Adonis Teb, Rasa medicine development, and Nemat trade development companies were a number of the Nematzadehs’ subsidiary companies. Shabnam along with her sister (Zeinab) and mother (Maryam Bakhtiar) had a direct role in managing these companies.

Activists believe that the freedom of Shabnam Nematzadeh will benefit the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) which is the importer of the most important goods and controls many wharves and essential boundary passages. Notably, the IRGC and many institutions that are controlled by the supreme leader Ali Khamenei or his appointees like the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order (EIKO) hoarded a large amount of medical equipment in safe depots.

Several of the Freed Embezzlers, Hoarders, and Criminals

On the other hand, many political prisoners and prisoners of conscience are held in penitentiaries while convicted officials or officials’ children are free despite their crimes. For instance, Tehran’s former mayor Mohammad Ali Najafi, who killed his wife and bluntly confessed to the murder, is in his home right now.

Hadi Razavi, son in law of the Labor Minister Mohammad Shariatmadari, is in his house despite being sentenced to 20 years in prison. Furthermore, the head of the Expediency Council Sadegh Amoli Larijani never stood to trial despite his 63 unregistered banking accounts, the appointment of embezzlers such as Akbar Tabari and Hassan Mirkazemi in the Judiciary system’s key positions, and spending tens of billions of tomans for building a seminary in Qom city.

Also, Ehsan, Omid, and Amir Hossein Assad-Beigi are nephews of the regime’s vice president Eshaq Jahangiri. The Assad-Beigis control the Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane company who plundered many workers, fired them and left others with many debts.

Simultaneously, the regime and its criminal Judiciary still kept in jail those who lauded their voice for citizen rights, fundamental freedoms, women’s rights, and justice. Security forces also detained more than 12,000 protesters in November and the fate of many of them is unclear. The Iranian resistance frequently called upon the international community to pressure the mullahs to release all prisoners, especially political ones as soon as possible. However, Iran’s authorities see freedom-loving people as a greater danger than medicine hoarders, embezzlers, thieves, and murderers who are loyal to the regime.

Read More:

Strategic Corruption in Iran’s Government