Sharifeh Mohammadi, Sentenced to Death, Writes from Prison: 'One Must Live and Hope'

Sharifeh Mohammadi, a labor activist sentenced to death, has released a note from prison addressed to her son, detailing the interrogation process and how she learned of her death sentence. In this note, published by the 'Campaign to Defend Sharifeh Mohammadi,' she states that prison officials 'had two months to inform me of the confirmation of my death sentence, but they did not announce it until an hour before my meeting with my husband and child on his birthday.' Sharifeh Mohammadi was arrested in December 2023, and in July 2024, the first branch of the Revolutionary Court in Rasht sentenced her to death on charges of 'baghi' (rebellion). In October 2024, the Supreme Court annulled this sentence, but on February 13, 2025, the second branch of the Revolutionary Court in Rasht again sentenced her to death. In her note, Mohammadi emphasizes that during her interrogation, she was tortured to confess falsely against herself, writing to her son: 'After two months in solitary confinement in Sanandaj prison, a few days before being transferred to Rasht, when an intelligence officer held a mirror in front of me to see myself, I felt like I was looking at a stranger in the mirror who I hadn't seen for three months. I quickly pushed it aside with my hand. The officer just wanted to show me that there were no marks left from the bruises on my eye and face.' The reason for this sentence was stated to be her membership over ten years ago in the 'Coordination Committee to Help Establish Labor Organizations,' a committee that, according to a former spokesperson and one of its founders, had official and public activities and 'was fundamentally opposed to underground and secret activities.' Membership in this 'Coordination Committee to Help Establish Labor Organizations' was cited as the basis for Mohammadi's charges, and the Revolutionary Court also attributed the charge of 'membership in the Komala Party' to her, a charge she vehemently denies. Mohammadi recounts the moment she learned of her first death sentence when her husband, Cyrus Fathi, told her over the phone that her sentence was 'the maximum punishment.' When she asked, 'How many years?', her husband replied, 'Sharifeh, you have been sentenced to death. Hanging.' She wrote to her son Aydin that she still does not know what crime she committed 'to deserve such a strange and unjust sentence'; however, at the end of her note, referring to the arrival of spring, she emphasized that 'no winter lasts forever,' and that 'one should not sit and cradle sorrow. One must live and hope.' Mohammadi's death sentence and its confirmation have faced widespread reactions from domestic and international human rights organizations and civil and political activists.