Soha Mortezaie summoned to serve sentence
On 9 February 2021, Branch 54 of the Court of Appeals of the Revolutionary Court upheld the verdict issued by Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court, which had sentenced Soha Mortezaie to six years in prison on charges of “gathering and collusion against national security.”
On 9 November 2020, Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court convicted student unionist and woman human rights defender Soha Mortezaie of “gathering and colluding against national security”, and sentenced her to six years in prison.
On 22 January, Soha Mortezaie was released on bail following a hunger strike and on 30 January the appeals court reduced her sentence to one year imprisonment, yet upheld the ban on membership of goups and media activity. On 1 May 2020, she was summoned to serve her sentence, but has not presented herself for fear of prison conditions during COVID-19.
Soha Mortezaie is a student union activist and former secretary of the student union of the University of Tehran. As a result of her work with student unions, Soha Mortezaie has been denied access to education.
On 9 February 2021, Branch 54 of the Court of Appeals of the Revolutionary Court upheld the verdict issued by Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court, which had sentenced Soha Mortezaie to six years in prison on charges of “gathering and collusion against national security.”
According to her lawyer, a sit-in at the university to protest against the denial of permission for her to undertake PhD studies is one of the main reasons the woman human rights defender was sentenced. Protests against the veil bill at the University of Tehran, participation in the November 2019 protests at the University of Tehran, and the activity in the student union council are other examples of her human rights work for which she is being judicially harassed.
On 9 November 2020, Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court convicted student unionist and woman human rights defender Soha Mortezaie of “gathering and colluding against national security”, and sentenced her to six years in prison.
She believes that the charges relate to her activities in defence of her right to education in Iran. In September 2019, university security authorities blocked Soha Mortezaie from enrolling in a PhD, to which she had previously been accepted. Beginning in October 2019, she held a one month sit-in protest at the University of Tehran. Furthermore, in November 2019 she participated in a demonstration in the University of Tehran, and was active in the university union council, protesting against the arbitrary denial of her right to education.
In September 2019, Soha Mortezaie was accepted for a PhD in political science at the University of Tehran, however she was barred from officially enrolling by security authorities. On 9 October 2019 she wrote a letter to University’s president Mahmoud Nili Ahmadabadi, criticising him of depriving her of access to education, along with the Intelligence Ministry and the Security Department of Tehran University. On 17 November 2019, Soha Mortezaie was arrested in the university after holding a sit-in for one month in the University in protest. On 27 November, her elected lawyer announced that he had been denied access to his client and that the Moghaddas court had issued a temporary detention order.
Soha Mortezaie’s family have received threats and been harassed by the security authorities as a result of her sit-in, among them being a threat to admit the student activist to a mental hospital and subject her to electric shock treatment.
On 22 January, Soha Mortezaie was released on bail following a hunger strike and on 30 January the appeals court reduced her sentence to one year imprisonment, yet upheld the ban on membership of goups and media activity. On 1 May 2020, she was summoned to serve her sentence, but has not presented herself for fear of prison conditions during COVID-19.
