The Execution of Sepideh Rashno's Sentence Suspended

While Sepideh Rashno announced her introduction to Evin Prison on Saturday, her brother, Saman Rashno, reported that this sentence has been suspended until August 4. Saman Rashno wrote on his social media account on X: "The second retrial has been registered, and we hope that with the change of the charge title in the second case, the suspended sentence of the first case will not be executed." Yesterday, after Sepideh Rashno announced her visit to the execution branch, several families of political prisoners and activists supported her, and the American PEN Association called her imprisonment "unjust." The American PEN Association published a message from Sepideh Rashno, urging writers and supporters worldwide to share her words on social media and protest against her "unjust" imprisonment and the detention of dozens of writers arrested by the Islamic Republic for "expressing opinions and speech." On Friday, August 5, Sepideh Rashno, a civil activist sentenced to imprisonment, criticized her punishment for opposing mandatory hijab in a video message and urged "every individual" to "stand up for their individuality and personal life." One day before the start of her three years and seven months imprisonment at Evin Prison, Sepideh emphasized: "I did nothing to be considered a criminal, to be removed from the city and streets, to be deprived of education, and even to be imprisoned. But the hands and feet of evil are so deeply embedded in our lives that our bodies, individuality, and lives are crimes." She called for an end to this "evil" as soon as possible and noted that "in this evil, we are all criminals, and we are only recognized as criminals in turn." Sepideh Rashno's conviction to three years and seven months of imprisonment relates to her case in 2022. This student, who was deprived of education, was arrested in July 2022 following her protest against "mandatory hijab" and her resistance to the interference of a "morality enforcer" regarding her attire on a bus. The 2023 Freedom of Expression Index shows that the Islamic Republic remains the second-largest prison for writers in the world, following China.