Mohammad Moghiseh, a notorious judge at Branch 28 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, sentenced each of the activists to:
• Five years for “association and collusion against national security”
• One year for “disseminating propaganda against the state”
• 10 years for “encouraging and preparing the grounds for corruption and prostitution”
Keshavarz was also sentenced to seven and a half years for “insulting the sanctities”. This adds up to 55 years and six months in prison for all three.
The activists were informed of their charges on June 26, when Moghiseh said he would make them all “suffer”.
The trio was charged for removing their headscarves on a metro train in Tehran, before passing out flowers to female passengers and discussing their hopes for women’s rights in Iran on March 8, which was International Women’s Day; something documented in a video widely shared on social media.
Aryani was arrested at home on April 1, while her mother Arabshahi, was arrested the following day when she went to the Vozara detention centre in Tehran to find out where her daughter was.
Arabshahi was transferred to Qarchak immediately, but Aryani was held in solitary confinement in Vozara for 9 days, where guards interrogated her and mistreated her in order to coerce her into making false confessions regarding her civil activities.
Keshavarz was arrested at her home on April 25 by state security forces. She was beaten in front of her nine-year-old daughter and then taken away to an unknown location.
Keshavarz had volunteered to help the flood-stricken residents of Lorestan, who were receiving no help from the Regime, before her arrest.
Amnesty International has sent a letter to Iran’s top judicial official demanding the release of these women.
They wrote: “Making criminals of women and girls who refuse to wear the hijab is an extreme form of discrimination.”
In a related case, Parvin Advaii, a female Kurdish activist, was arrested by agents of the Intelligence Department of Marivan on July 27. Her home was raided and ransacked, while she was taken to an unknown location.
