Sepideh Gholian sentenced to two years in prison for chanting a slogan against the Supreme Leader
On 6 May 2023, the brother of woman human rights defender Sepideh Gholian announced on social media that she had been sentenced to two years in prison, on the charge of “insulting the supreme leader”, by branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court.
Sepideh Gholian is a woman human rights defender and freelance journalist, with her human rights work focusing primarily on labour rights. She has worked closely with the Syndicate of Workers of Haft Tappeh Cane Sugar Company, a trade union established in 1974 for the workers of the Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Agro-industrial Complex. She has been reporting on the situation of women prisoners including by publishing illustrations and prison diaries.
On 6 May 2023, the brother of woman human rights defender Sepideh Gholian announced on social media that she had been sentenced to two years in prison, on the charge of “insulting the supreme leader”, by branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court.
Sepideh Gholian is a woman human rights defender and freelance journalist, with her human rights work focusing primarily on labour rights. She has worked closely with the Syndicate of Workers of Haft Tappeh Cane Sugar Company, a trade union established in 1974 for the workers of the Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Agro-industrial Complex. She has been reporting on the situation of women prisoners including by publishing illustrations and prison diaries.
On 6 May 2023, Sepideh Gholian was sentenced to two years in prison on the charge of “insulting the supreme leader” by branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, following her re-arrest on 15 March 2023. The woman human rights defender was violently re-arrested in Arak, Markazi province, a few hours after her release from Evin prison where she had been detained for three years. She was on her way to Dezful, Khozestan province together with her family, when she was re-arrested without being shown an arrest warrant. The mobile devices of her family members were also confiscated.
Sepideh Gholian was released from Evin prison in March 2023 after serving three years of her five-year sentence. Her release came after the ratification of a law on 11 May 2020 which reduced prison sentences for political prisoners who served one third of their terms. The woman human rights defender was made eligible for release under this law. Sepideh Gholian began serving this sentence in Qarchak prison on 21 June 2020, the charges for which date back to 2018. She was transferred several times to other prisons, including Bushehr Prison in the south of Iran on 10 March 2021, more than 600km from Dezful where Sepideh Gholian's parents live.
Sepideh Gholian previously appeared before a judge in the courthouse of Evin prison on 16 June 2020, where she was instructed to write a letter to the Supreme Leader requesting a pardon, and was told that they would “see what they could do for her”. She was told that if she did not request a pardon, she would begin serving her five-year sentence in Qarchak prison. Sepideh Gholian insisted on her innocence and dismissed the offer, surrendering herself to the authorities on 21 June 2020 to serve her sentence.
Front Line Defenders condemns the repeated prosecutions of Sepideh Gholian as part of a wider crackdown on human rights defenders in the context of the protests in Iran where, since September 2022, hundreds of human rights defenders have been arrested, charged and subjected to hefty prison sentences without adherence to due process or fair trial rights.
Front Line Defenders is particularly concerned by the breach of international human rights law related to Iran’s treatment of human rights defenders in detention. It believes that the woman human rights defender Sepideh Gholian is being detained as a result of her legitimate and non-violent human rights work, especially with regard to her advocacy for labour rights and prisoners’ rights in Iran.
