Majid Khoshmanzar Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison for Charges Including 'Disabling CCTV Cameras'

According to HRANA, the news agency of the Human Rights Activists in Iran, Majid Khoshmanzar, a senior traffic control employee in Mashhad who was accused of 'moharebeh' (waging war against God), has been sentenced by the first branch of the Revolutionary Court in Mashhad to ten years in prison and one year of exile to Taybad. The appellate court of Razavi Khorasan province has 'confirmed the ruling exactly.' HRANA reports that 'disabling CCTV cameras' is among the charges against Majid Khoshmanzar. Khoshmanzar, who is serving his prison sentence in Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad, was arrested by Ministry of Intelligence agents during nationwide protests. According to the Committee to Follow Up on the Status of Detainees, Majid Khoshmanzar, 49, along with his son Amirreza Khoshmanzar and Babak Zarrin, were arrested on November 25, 2022, 'but reports indicate that other defendants in this case have been released from prison after receiving pardons.' The committee reports that 'it is said that on November 25 of last year, coinciding with the fortieth day of the killing of Mahsa Zhina Amini while in the custody of the morality police, urban traffic cameras in Mashhad were disabled, and it was later stated that this issue was due to the burning of fiber optics at the traffic control center of the municipality.' In the protests that erupted after Mahsa Amini's death in custody, hundreds were killed and thousands were injured and arrested across Iran. The Islamic Republic described these protests as 'riots,' 'chaos,' and 'organized actions' with 'foreign interference' and resorted to severe repression of protesters through various means, including widespread arrests, abduction and sexual assault of children and adolescents, systematic blinding of protesters, distorting the causes of death of the deceased, and obstructing the delivery of the bodies of the deceased, among others.