Appeal Court of East Azerbaijan Sentences Mokhtar Ebrahimi, Civil Activist, to One Year in Prison

The East Azerbaijan Provincial Appeal Court has notified Mokhtar Ebrahimi, an Azerbaijani civil activist, of a one-year prison sentence. According to reports received by Voice of America, Mr. Ebrahimi, an activist from Maragheh, was initially sentenced to "10 years in prison" in the lower court, but the second branch of the East Azerbaijan Appeal Court has reduced it to one year of punitive imprisonment. The Islamic Revolutionary Court had charged this civil activist with "forming a group to disrupt national security," but his charge was changed to "propaganda against the regime" in the appeal court. According to the Azerbaijani Political Prisoners Defense Association in Iran (ADAP), "the judge relied on several group photos" with other civil activists related to "collecting public donations to assist victims of natural disasters," along with "800 pages of articles and a DVD" of his speeches in private gatherings, to substantiate the charge of "propaganda against the regime." Mr. Ebrahimi was arrested on July 25, 2020, when agents from the Information Office of Tabriz visited his factory in the Maragheh industrial zone. After a month of interrogation, he was released from solitary confinement in the Tabriz Information Office on a bail of 500 million tomans. According to reports, based on the statements of Mokhtar Ebrahimi's relatives, the "case fabrication by the Maragheh Information Office" led to "false accusations" against him. Yashar Hakkakpour, the director of ADAP, who resides in Canada, told Voice of America: "Mokhtar Ebrahimi is one of the entrepreneurs and a prominent example of a political-social activist who has been prosecuted solely for defending freedom of expression and the rights of ethnic Turks, and he has been sentenced to one year and six months in prison." He adds: "The entire effort of the Maragheh Information Office is to silence freedom-seekers who, with a democratic perspective, demand the removal of national oppression against Azerbaijanis in Iran." Mr. Hakkakpour believes that "there is no evidence to support the security charges in the entire case. The Maragheh Information Office initially instructed to charge him with forming a group merely for setting up a tent to collect public donations and transferring them to earthquake victims in Turkmen Sahra and Kermanshah, and when they saw that there was no evidence for this charge, they changed it from forming a group to propaganda against the regime." He points out that "the propaganda charge is also not valid for Mr. Ebrahimi, as he has not had a platform to express himself." Meanwhile, the Azerbaijani Political Prisoners Defense Association in Iran reported that Ramin Ali-Nia Tazekand, an Azerbaijani activist in Ardabil, has been sentenced by Branch 36 of the Tehran Appeal Court to six years of punitive imprisonment and two years of prohibition from membership in political groups and activity in cyberspace. According to this report, the charges against this civil activist were "gathering and conspiracy with the intent to act against national security" and "propaganda against the regime." Ramin Ali-Nia Tazekand was sentenced to six years in prison and supplementary punishment while, last year, a directive for "amnesty and reduction of public penalties" was issued, stating that open cases at any stage of litigation should be halted and closed. This Azerbaijani activist was arrested in November last year by plainclothes agents of the Revolutionary Guards at his father's home in a village in Ardabil and was released on bail until the end of the litigation process on December 9. Yashar Hakkakpour comments on the sentence issued for this civil activist, saying: "The charge of conspiracy, while there is no material element of the crime, and the issuance of a six-year prison sentence for a young man who has not even participated in protests, indicates the highly secure atmosphere in the cities of Azerbaijan." He also emphasizes that "the Iranian government uses the tool of creating fear by issuing disproportionate sentences for one or two individuals to silence the rest of the Azerbaijanis."