IRAN NEWS))))))

Amnesty International published a report on July 26, calling on the international community to stand with Iranian women and girls suffering intensifying repression. A I’s report focuses on the clerical regime’s stepped-up efforts since mid-April to double-down on “oppressive methods of policing and severely oppressing Iranian women and girls for defying degrading compulsory veiling laws.” The AI detailed report exposes the Iranian authorities’ “intensified nationwide crackdown on women and girls who choose not to wear headscarves in public.” Amnesty International also cited official announcements since April 15, 2023, indicating that “more than a million women have received text messages warning that their vehicles could be confiscated after they were captured on camera without their headscarves.” The statement by Amnesty International added, “Countless women have been suspended or expelled from universities, barred from sitting final exams, and denied access to banking services and public transport. Hundreds of businesses have been forcibly closed for not enforcing compulsory veiling.” https://tinyurl.com/39pxsmbf

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Labor activist Anisha Assadollahi reported to Evin prison to serve her time in prison. The 26th Branch of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran sentenced Ms. Assadollahi to five years and eight months in prison in late May 2023. Tehran Province’s Revision Court later upheld this verdict. Labor activist Anisha Assadollahi was convicted of “assembly and collusion” and “propaganda against the state” and sentenced to 5 years and eight months. According to Article 134 of the regime’s Punishment Code, the maximum sentence would be implemented, which is five years for “assembly and collusion.” https://tinyurl.com/8w86rmum

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A judicial authority sentenced Journalist Marzieh Mahmoudi for the second time to pay a cash penalty and go to internal exile in the remote city of Torbat-e Jam in Razavi Khorasan province, northeastern Iran, just 40 kilometers from the border of Afghanistan. Marzieh Mahmoudi stated in her tweet, “Because of a renewed complaint by (mullah) Hamid Rasaii (a former MP), I was sentenced with a 24-million-Toman cash penalty and one year of exile to Torbat-e Jam.” 

Zahra Saeedianju was not allowed to visit her family on Tuesday, July 25, 2023, in Ahvaz. She was banned from having any visits during her interrogation in Tehran and after being transferred to Ahvaz. Zahra is the sister of Milad Saeedianju, 26, who was shot and killed by security forces on November 14, 2022, during the protests in Izeh. Security forces arrested her at her workplace in Tehran and taken to Evin Prison on Sunday, July 9, 2023. https://tinyurl.com/5en2tukn

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Mahsa Mogouii’s close relatives have been detained in limbo without standing trial days after their arrest. On July 16th, they gathered at Mahsa Mogouii’s grave in the cemetery of Fouladshahr to commemorate her birthday. However, security forces arrested her father, mother, and brother. Effat, Mahsa’s mother, was arrested and transferred to the Intelligence Department’s detention center in Lenjan County in the central Isfahan Province. Her father, Mohammad Ali Mogouii, and brother, Milad Mogouii, were taken to Isfahan’s Dastgerd Prison. Despite the passage of seven days since their arrest, they continue to be held without a trial. Mahsa Mogouii, an 18-year-old from Fouladshahr, was shot and killed by security forces using pellet guns during the nationwide protests on September 22, 2022. 

Recent reports indicate that Nazilla Maroofian has been transferred from the Intelligence Ministry’s detention center in Ward 209 of Evin to the women’s ward of the prison. She is a young journalist from Saqqez who studied at Tehran’s Allameh Tabatabaii University and used to work with Dideban-e Iran and Rouydad24 websites. She was summoned to the first branch of the Evin Courthouse on July 8th, where she was arrested after reporting in and then transferred to Evin Prison. On July 4th, security forces raided Ms. Maroofian’s residence and confiscated her electronic devices. https://tinyurl.com/3ystk6kb