Continued Imprisonment of Bahareh Hedayat and Rasoul Badaghi; Keyvan Mehrgan Sent to Prison

Bahareh Hedayat, a political prisoner whose release order from Evin prison had been issued, was sentenced to an additional two years in prison before her release. Ms. Hedayat, who has been imprisoned since 2009, informed her husband Amin Ahmadian that 'after being summoned to the execution of sentences, she was informed that her release order had come four days prior, and from Tuesday, the two-year suspended sentence in her case had been enforced.' According to a report on Wednesday, September 4, from the Khabar Online website, the request to enforce Bahareh Hedayat's suspended sentence was made by 'individual' Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, the public and revolutionary prosecutor of Tehran, to Judge Moqiseh 'to prevent Bahareh Hedayat's release under a legal pretext.' The new two-year prison sentence for this former student activist stems from a ruling issued in 2006 following her arrest during a gathering held to support women's rights in Tehran's Haft Tir Square. This ruling was suspended until Ms. Hedayat was sentenced to six years in prison in 2009 after the controversial presidential election of that year on charges such as insulting the leadership, insulting the president, and acting against national security. Additionally, the Teacher and Worker Rights Information Base and Khabar Online have reported that despite more than 20 days having passed since the end of Rasoul Badaghi's six-year imprisonment, his release is still being prevented. Mr. Badaghi was an activist for teachers' rights in Iran who was arrested in September 2009 and, after several months of detention, was tried and sentenced to six years in prison. He was not allowed to take leave during his entire imprisonment. Keyvan Mehrgan, a journalist and documentarian, has also been arrested to serve a one-year prison sentence and transferred to Evin prison. According to Khabar Online, Mr. Mehrgan was sentenced in 2011 in Branch 15 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Tehran, presided over by Judge Salavati, to one year in prison and five years of prohibition from journalistic, political, cultural, and virtual activities on charges of propaganda against the regime. This journalist was also arrested in 2009 and released after two months on a bail of 100 million tomans. Keyvan Mehrgan was also detained in winter 2012 during the arrest of several journalists and was released after nearly a month. In this context, Reporters Without Borders condemned the 'policy of suppressing journalists' and the 'arrest' of several protesting teachers in front of the parliament in Tehran.