Judiciary and security agencies are stepping up pressure on members of the Voice of Iranian Women Association. They are charged with “promoting corruption and prostitution”, “formation of the Iranian Women Association”, “association and collusion against national security”, and “propaganda against state.” They are either imprisoned in limbo, or are under increasing pressure by judiciary and security agencies.
Akram Nasirian and Nahid Shaqaqi were summoned to the 2nd Branch of the Prosecutor’s Office of Evin, on September 4, 2019. Four days later, on September 8, when they reported in, they were told that their bail bond had increased. They were freed after they paid the bail. Mmes Nasirian and Shaqaqi had been arrested in April 2019 and detained for a month before being released on bail.
Mahboubeh Farahzadi, retired teacher and a member of the Voice of Iranian Women Association, was also summoned on September 3, 2019, to the Prosecutor’s Office of Evin, and was interrogated there for several hours on September 8, 2019.
Maryam Mohammadi, another member of the Voice of Iranian Women Association, was arrested on July 8, 2019, in the city of Garmsar and taken to solitary confinement in the Intelligence Ministry Ward 209 in Evin Prison. She was confined for a month in solitary and subsequently transferred to the Women’s Ward. Ms. Mohammadi was a political prisoner in the 80s. She was arrested in 1981 at the age of 14 and remained in detention until 1989. She has two daughters, 16 and 26 years old.
Esrin Derkaleh, another member of the Voice of Iranian Women Association, has been in prison for more than 40 days. She was arrested on July 28, 2019, in Garmsar and taken to Ward 209 of Evin Prison. She was born in 1983 and has an 18-year-old child.
Mmes Mohammadi and Derkaleh are presently held in detention under undetermined status.
In another development on September 11, 2019, the lawyer of imprisoned student activist Leila Hosseinzadeh announced that a new charge has been levelled against his client.
Leila Hosseinzadeh is the secretary of the student central council of Tehran University who is presently imprisoned in Evin Prison. Her new charge is participating in the birthday ceremony of another imprisoned student in January 2019 outside the Industrial Sharif University of Tehran. Leila Hosseinzadeh was sentenced to 30 months of prison on June 24, 2019, for “association and collusion against national security” and to another one year in prison for “propaganda against the state.” She will be banned from leaving the country for two years after completing her sentence.
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