Teachers and educators in Kermanshah and Ardabil in Iran
gathered on Thursday, January 10, in front of the Department of Education to
protest against the regime’s lack of response to their demands to raise their
low salaries. On the same day defrauded clients of Padideh Shandiz financial
institute held a protest in Mashhad outside the Governorate building demanding
their assets.
On Wednesday, January 9, teachers and educators in
Isfahan gathered outside the Department of Education in Isfahan and staged a
protest.
On Tuesday, January 8, the defrauded clients of the Caspian
Credit Institute in Rasht gathered in front of the office of the institute in a
protest gathering which consisted of women. They demanded the return of their
lost assets. On the same day, buyers and
owners of automobiles including Saipa, Brilliance, PrideL90 and etc. gathered
at the car exhibition in Tehran-Iran to protest against the failure to deliver
their vehicles.
The students of Shiraz University also gathered in front
of the City Council in protest to the death of a woman on Jan. 4 sleeping in
cardboard boxes on the streets of Shiraz. The students said that they would
sleep in the cold in front of the City Council until the problem of homeless
people of Shiraz is resolved.
On Monday, January 7, members of the Vahdat Institute in
Mashhad gathered in front of the city’s governorate in protest to their
unemployment.
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Sahar Kazemi a female Kurdish woman from Sanandaj who was
arrested by the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Intelligence forces at her home in
August 2018, was temporarily released on November 24, but was arrested again on
Sunday, December 2, after going to the Justice Department of Sanandaj. Sahar
Kazemi’s husband, Madeh Fat’hi, was arrested last autumn and held for three
months in a solitary cell in the detention center of the Department of
Intelligence of Sanandaj.
Moreover, Sama Nazifi, a student of architecture at Azad
University’s Shahriar Branch, was dismissed from school on Monday, January 7,
due to her Baha’i beliefs. She had received an honorary student title last
year.
According to reports, until November 19, 2018, 58 Baha’i
students were deprived of their education at the university competitive
examinations, and at least 11 Baha’i students were expelled from their
universities because of their beliefs.
In another report, Baha’i woman Neda Shabani
is still being held in uncertain status over 40 days after her arrest in Karaj.
The security forces of Karaj arrested Neda
Shabani on November 29, 2018, and transferred her to an unknown location. Ms.
Shabani has only been able to contact her family once a week, and despite
repeated attempts by her family, they have not yet been fully informed about
the status of her case. They have only been informed of Neda Shabani’s extended
detention.
Also in Isfahan, several women were sentenced
to imprisonment on December 25, 2018, because of their Baha’i conviction.
Baha’i women Bahareh Zaini (Sobhaniyan), Fujhan Rashidi and Sepideh Rouhani
were each sentenced to 4 years’ imprisonment and Anosh Rayeneh to 6 years in
jail.
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Sufi woman Elham Ahmadi was sentenced to 148 lashes by
Mohammadi, the Head of Qarchak prison in Varamin for revealing the catastrophic
condition of Qarchak prison and the lack of medical treatment of women in
prison by an audio recording. She was charged with ‘publishing lies’ and
‘insulting prison officers’ by the Sharia judge of Branch 1145 of the regime’s court.
For each of these two accusations, she was sentenced to 74 lashes, a total of
148 lashes.
Iran is the only country in the world in which thousands
of women have been executed or subjected to torture for being opposed to the
regime. According to eyewitnesses, just over the past
year, nearly a thousand women were arrested and brutalized in prison for
participating in anti-government protests.
Elham Ahmadi and other imprisoned Sufi women,
Sepideh Moradi and Shokoufeh Yadollahi, were beaten and brutalized by prison
agents for asking the return of their personal belongings seized by prison
authorities on June 13, 2018.
Earlier last August, Sufi women imprisoned in
Varamin’s Qarchak Prison were beaten by security agents on the grounds that one
of them, Elham Ahmadi, made a telephone call to her young daughter. The raid on
the Sufi women followed the public dissemination of an audio recording by Elham
Ahmadi which revealed the catastrophic state of medical treatment in Qarchak
Prison.
Previously on June 11, 2018, six Sufi women
went on hunger strike, which lasted 16 days, in protest to the mistreatment and
beatings of prisoners.
Ms. Elham Ahmadi was arrested during a bloody
crackdown on the Gonabadi Dervishes protest in Tehran on February 20, 2018, and
detained in the Qarchak Prison of Varamin. She has already been sentenced to
five years in jail by Tehran’s Revolutionary Court.
Amnesty International issued an Urgent Action
on March 29, 2018, condemning the arbitrary arrest and ill-treatment of 11
women from Gonabadi Dervish religious minority.
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Security forces secretly buried Zahra Navidpour body in
the small villag of Tazeh Qaleh(Mikan Kandi). The
lifeless body of Zahra Navidpour was found on Sunday, January 6, 2019, at her
mother’s home. Zahra Navidpour, 28, had been repeatedly raped by Salman
Khodadadi, the parliamentary deputy of the people of Malekan, a small city in
East Azerbaijan Province, in northwestern Iran. Khodadadi
had previously told her in the parliament, “I will order to have you and your
family killed overnight without anyone knowing.” The
handwritten notes, documents and complaints that Zahra Navidpour has left
reveal that she had been pursuing her rights in a legal process. She had been repeatedly threatened by Salman
Khodadadi. In a letter to the judge persiding her case, she wrote that she had
no security and that she needed to be protected. Holding
audio files and documents of the threats, Zahra Navidpour attended several
court hearings. The judge, however, was intent on incriminating her. He accused
Zahra of lying and tried to turn the case against her while attempting to close
the case in any possible way. Zahra
Navidpour is not the first woman in Iran who becomes victim of violence and
sexual abuse by regime officials but is incriminated by the court against her
own complaint, and finally loses her life.