On Trial for Someone Else’s Facebook Posts

Najibeh Salehzadeh was charged with “propaganda against the regime” and “insulting the supreme leader” — but the charges relate to posts on a Facebook account that has nothing to do with her.

Salehzadeh, the wife of labor activist Mahmoud Salehi, was tried at Branch 1 of the Revolutionary Court of Saghez in Kurdistan in June. The court’s verdict is expected within a few days.

She insisted that she does not have a Facebook account and told the court that it was possible someone else had opened up a fake account in her name.

“On Monday, accompanied by my son, I went to court and the judge repeated the same charges of propaganda against the regime and insulting the supreme leader on Facebook,” Salehzadeh told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (in Persian). “As during the interrogations earlier, I categorically denied the charges and said I had never had an account with Facebook. I said that if someone has done this under my name then I am the plaintive and the prosecutor must pursue the matter... I live in Iran and I know that such an insult is an offence.”

Salehzadeh said that, according to the file on her case, a woman named Sanaz listed Salehzadeh’s phone number under two separate posts on Facebook. 

“The cyber police identified me through this number and opened a case. I said in the court that it is not logical that someone would write something on Facebook under a pseudonym and then disclose to the public her real phone number.”

Salehzadeh told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that she was summoned to court on June 6, 2016 and was charged. “They told me that during a trip to France I had posted material on Facebook against the Islamic Republic and the Supreme Leader,” said Salehzadeh. “But I don’t have a Facebook account and I traveled to France to accompany my husband, who had been invited by a large labor organization in Europe.”

Salehzadeh’s husband Mahmoud Salehi is a labor activist who has been arrested and imprisoned several times. On September 28, 2015 he was sentenced to nine years in prison for “participation in opposition assemblies” and “propaganda against the regime.” He is currently free on bail for medical treatment for acute kidney disease. According to his relatives, Salehi contracted the condition after he was denied medical treatment during his last bout in prison, which was in May.

“The honorable case judge has said that my wife and I had spread propaganda against the Islamic Republic [while we were ] in France,” wrote Salehi on his Facebook page. “For your information, the video recording [in Persian and French] of my speech to the representatives of 50 labor unions in France is available, and the honorable judge... can see clearly that the conference had nothing to do with the Islamic Republic or anyone’s sacred beliefs.”

Independent unions are banned in Iran, and workers who go on strike are often fired or arrested and prosecuted under national security charges. The charges against Najibeh Salehzadeh could be the authorities’ way of extending Salehi’s punishment. If so, her protests are unlikely to influence the court’s decision.