One-Year Prison Sentence for Yashar Tabrizi: The National Will for an Irreversible Transition from Religious Despotism

Yashar Tabrizi, a constitutional activist, announced from Evin Prison that he has been sentenced to 'one year of punitive imprisonment' and stated that he will not appeal the decision, rejecting the 'fabrications' and 'show trials.' In a message published on his Instagram account on Wednesday, November 25, he recounted that on June 10, several agents from the Ministry of Intelligence raided his home, conducted a 'complete search and seizure of his and his wife's phones,' and detained him for 'more than two weeks in solitary confinement.' He mentioned that after 'interrogation and the fabrication of charges,' he was released on bail, but a few days after the court's ruling, he was violently re-arrested in Tabriz by a large number of security forces and transferred to Tehran and Evin Prison's Ward 240 after three days. He added, 'Again, the same repetitive questions and false accusations from the past, along with threats and humiliation, which are, of course, behaviors befitting themselves.' The civil activist stated that 'the one-year punitive sentence was issued in the last days of Mehr,' and he added, 'I have submitted to the ruling without objection. I have said in the past and today that I fundamentally do not accept these fabrications and the holding of show trials, and I am being held innocent in prison.' Tabrizi emphasized that 'we did not choose a miserable life to have demands for ourselves alongside it; rather, our priority is to fight and demand for all people and for a dignified and decent life and relative welfare that every Iranian citizen should have.' In his message to the Iranian people, he urged, 'Do not fear prison and speak up for your right to life and that of your children. The truth is we have nothing to lose. The process of the national will of the Iranian people for an irreversible transition from religious despotism is underway.' This constitutional activist stressed the necessity of 'multiplying awareness and courage,' adding, 'The inefficacy of the government will not be resolved through threats, intimidation, imprisonment, and repression.' Previously, Saeed Ahmadi Deljou, a political activist, also described the situation of several political prisoners in a message to Voice of America, stating that 'injustice, incompetence of the managers and officials of the country, and the ill-considered leadership have brought the country to the last stages of instability.'