Two journalists were given years in prison by an Iranian Revolutionary Court for their coverage of Kurdish-Iranian Mahsa Amini’s death in custody last year, according to state media on Sunday.
The death of 22-year-old Amini in the morality police’s custody in September 2022 for allegedly breaking the Islamic dress code, sparked months of widespread protests across Iran, posing the most significant threat to the country’s religious leaders in decades.
Niloofar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi, according to Iran’s official news agency IRNA, were found guilty of conspiring with the US government and working against national security and received sentences of 13 and 12 years in jail, respectively. The accusations have been refuted by the two women’s attorneys.
“They received seven years and six years each respectively for collaborating with the hostile US government. Then each five years in prison for acting against the national security and each one year in prison for propaganda against the system.”
Mohammadi was jailed after covering Masha Amini’s funeral in her Kurdish village of Saqez, where the protests first started, while Hamedi was detained after taking a photo of Amini’s parents holding hands in a Tehran hospital where their daughter was lying in a coma.
The “issued verdicts” are appealable, according to IRNA.
The punishments were denounced by the US.
“(They) should never have been jailed, and we condemn their sentences. The Iranian regime jails journalists because it fears the truth,” according to Deputy Special Envoy for Iran Abram Paley’s social media posts
According to the judiciary’s Mizan news agency, the sentences will be reduced for the time the women have already served at the Evin Prison, which houses the majority of political prisoners.
Mohammadi and Hamedi were charged with working as CIA spies in a statement issued by Iran’s intelligence ministry in October of last year.
“There is documented evidence of Hamedi and Mohammadi’s intentional connections with certain entities and individuals affiliated with the US government,” Mizan stated.
