US Representative at the UN Protests Narges Mohammadi's Prison Sentence

After the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights protested the 10-year prison sentence for Narges Mohammadi and called for her immediate release, Samantha Power, the US representative to the UN, also described the ruling against Ms. Mohammadi as "unjust." On Friday evening, Ms. Power tweeted that "Narges Mohammadi, a human rights activist in Iran, is unjustly imprisoned and must be freed. Instead, her prison sentence has been extended." Narges Mohammadi, while serving her six-year sentence in prison, was recently sentenced to 16 years in a closed court presided over by Abolqasem Salavati for three charges against her, but as specified in the court ruling, she received a 10-year sentence due to existing regulations regarding the consolidation of sentences. Thus, Ms. Mohammadi, who has been temporarily released from prison several times due to illness and has returned, will spend four more years in prison. Abolqasem Salavati, the judge of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, who has judged many political and human rights activists' cases in recent years, has accused Ms. Mohammadi of three charges: "conspiracy and collusion to commit a crime against national security," "propaganda against the regime," and "forming and managing an illegal group called Legam." However, Taghi Rahmani, Ms. Mohammadi's husband, stated that "it seems the judge was only looking for an excuse to increase her sentence." He added that "this heavy sentence is a form of revenge not only against Narges but against the entire civil society of Iran. This sentence is the result of a joint action by the Revolutionary Guards and the Ministry of Intelligence to intimidate activists who inform about human rights violations, including the situation of political prisoners in Iran." On Friday, just hours before the US representative's reaction to the increased sentence for Narges Mohammadi, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also described the ruling against Ms. Mohammadi as "shocking" and criticized the lack of access for this political prisoner to medical services. The statement emphasized that the ruling against Ms. Mohammadi reflects "an increasingly low tolerance" for supporting human rights in Iran. This UN-affiliated body also urged Iranian authorities to guarantee the immediate release of Ms. Mohammadi and all those imprisoned solely for their human rights. The ruling against Narges Mohammadi had previously drawn reactions from international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, which described it as indicative of the "abuse of Iran's criminal justice system" using such rulings as "a tool for repression." Reporters Without Borders also emphasized through its Secretary-General Christophe Deloire that "such a heavy sentence indicates the injustice of Iran's judicial system, and President Hassan Rouhani should not remain silent in the face of this judicial atrocity."