Iranian Political Prisoner Mortazavi Handed Another Prison Term

Abdul Rasool Mortazavi, a political prisoner serving a long-term prison sentence, has been handed an additional two-year term on charges of "insulting the leadership," the HRANA Human Rights News Agency reported on February 13. 

Mortazavi was tried before the Karaj Revolutionary Court for an audio recording he had sent from prison in May 2023 and titled "Joke with the Leader of the World's Ridiculous," in reference to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The activist, who is a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, is incarcerated in Isfahan’s Dastgerd prison.

He was sentenced to a total of 26 years in prison by the Mashhad Revolutionary Court for signing a 2019 statement calling for Khamenei’s resignation, the abolition of the Islamic Republic and the establishment of a secular government.

In May 2021, the Tehran Revolutionary Court sentenced Mortazavi to an additional two-year prison sentence for “propaganda against the Islamic Republic" and "disrupting public order."