Iranian human rights activist Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee was arrested on Saturday at her home in Tehran, with at least ten security agents raiding her home before taking her into custody.

Iraee, a former political prisoner, must now serve a sentence handed down in July and upheld on appeal without further examination, according to her lawyer Amir Raissian, which relates to a protest that she took part in during her last detention where she criticized the Iranian regime for the execution of three Kurdish dissidents.

Urgent: Former political prisoner Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee is rearrested
She was arrested at home by 10 male security forces and taken to an unknown location. The security forces did not show their warrant for arrest.#Iran https://t.co/eOrRq28YvH pic.twitter.com/YtauqPvN4Z

— NCRIWomen'sCommittee (@womenncri) November 9, 2019

Iraee and fellow political prisoner Atena Daemi were found guilty on vague national security charges, the kind often levied against political prisoners. They were sentenced to three years and seven months in prison for “insulting the supreme leader” (two years and one month) and “propaganda against the state” (one year and six months) each by Judge Iman Afshari of Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran.

They will each have to serve at least two years and one month of that sentence.

Iraee was first arrested, alongside her husband and two other activists, by the intelligence division of the Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) on September 6, 2014. She was held for three weeks on Ward 2A in Evin Prison, which is known to be the IRGC Intelligence ward, before being released on September 27 on an 800 million rial bail for her activities on Facebook.

Iraee was later sentenced to six years in prison for “insulting sanctities” and “propaganda against the state”, which are again vague charges levied against political activists. Her crime? Writing an unpublished story about the barbaric punishment of stoning in Iran, which the regime would never have known about had they not stormed her house and seized her computer.

In October 2016, her house was stormed by security forces and she was taken to Evin Prison to serve her sentence. Her husband Arash Sadeghi, who began serving a 15-year prison sentence earlier that year for his peaceful political activities, went on a hunger strike in protest to her arrest and after 72 days she was released on January 3, 2017.

Senegal says Iran must continue efforts on education & health care in correction centres.

Reminder that Iran routinely denies access to medical care for human rights defenders. Currently Arash Sadeghi is being denied access to cancer treatment#UPR34 #IranUPR pic.twitter.com/z5OGURZQqo

— Amnesty Iran (@AmnestyIran) November 8, 2019

However, she was re-arrested on January 22 of that year when she went to the hospital where Sadeghi was supposed to be examined.

Iraee was released on bail in April 2019 after serving 3.5 years of her six-year prison sentence.

Since then, she has been campaigning on Twitter for the release of cancer-stricken Sadeghi and calling for him to be allowed access to medical treatment because he is in poor health following a cancer operation last year.

In the wake of Ramin Hosseini Panahi’s death sentence, seven political prisoners at Rajaee Shahr jail in Karaj wrote an open letter to the regime and the Iranian public. The letter, entitled “Hanging is a murder by the government in all circumstances”, urged international organizations and sympathetic members of the public to rally against the barbaric and inhumane application of capital punishment.

Ramin Hosseini Panahi

Ramin Hosseini Panahi was sentenced to death in January on charges of “taking up arms against the state”. The 22-year-old Kurd’s trial lasted less than an hour, and he had visible evidence of torture on his body as he faced the charges in court. He was forbidden access to his family and his lawyer in the weeks leading up to the trial and received little information regarding the charges against him.

His death sentence has been widely criticised by international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, who have called for the imminent halt of the execution. The execution is due to take place on Thursday, May 7^th.

Hanging in Iran

Hanging is increasingly seen as a barbaric form of punishment, so much so that over 100 countries have outlawed the execution method. However, the opposite has occurred in Iran. It has increasingly become the mullahs’ preferred form of punishment for political prisoners. According to Amnesty International, Iran executes more of its own citizens than any other country on earth.

It was for this reason that the seven brave prisoners penned their open letter. They stated that we “would like to publicly express our concerns in this regard; we consider hanging a murder by the government, in all circumstances. We strongly condemn this inhumane act and call for its eradication. We are hoping that international societies, human rights organizations, and conscientious people, will not give up their efforts and continue to fight.”

Saeed Masoori, Zaniyar Moradi, Saeed Shirzad, Arash Sadeghi, Payam Shakiba, Loghman Moradi, and Majid Asadi risked their lives by penning their open letter. However, they have succeeded in drawing more attention to the barbaric and tyrannical measures employed by the clerical regime in Iran. Whether their letter helps bring about a change in the penal system remains to be seen, but their bravery and determination in penning the message to the world will ensure that the regime is held accountable for its systematic abuse of the Iranian justice system.

Staff Writer