A teenage girl in West Azerbaijan province has been sentenced to half a decade in prison for her political affiliations, the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights reports.
Ainaz Zare, 17, from Urmia, was sentenced by the First Branch of the Urmia Juvenile Criminal Court to 5 years in prison on Monday, October 16.
The young woman was arrested last September together with her mother Shahnaz Sadeghifar, 32. The pair have been held behind bars ever since, charged with “acting against national security” over their membership of the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK).
Shahnaz Sadeghifar fought for three years against ISIS alongside the PAK and returned to the Baneh border after receiving a safe-passage letter from the Iranian intelligence service.
But as IranWire has previously reported, she was then detained by the Revolutionary Guards and later sentenced in July 2020 to 15 years in prison.
Neither she nor her daughter Ainaz were reportedly allowed access to a lawyer during their trial. Both were interrogated for two months, during which, the National Council of Resistance of Iran reports, they were subjected to intense physical and psychological torture and forced to give false confessions.
The NCR Iran also says that both Ainaz and Shahnaz went on hunger strike in the late summer in protest against their confinement. In August, Ainaz was reportedly taken to Taleghani Hospital in Urmia, suffering from shortness of breath and thought to be infected with coronavirus.
Related coverage:
Kurdish Mother-of-Three Promised Amnesty, Then Jailed for 15 Years
visit the accountability section
In this section of Iran Wire, you can contact the officials and launch your campaign for various problems
Interested in writing for IranWire?
Share your stories.
comments