Two journalists face death penalty for reporting on Mahsa Amini’s death

by time news

2023-05-31 11:19:34

The trial of a journalist Iranian, arrested after covering the death in custody of Mahsa Aminiat the origin of a vast protest movement in Iran, opened on Tuesday at Tehran. Niloufar Hamedi, 30, has denied all charges against her. She told the court that she had “done her job as a journalist within the law and had not committed any act against the security of Iran”, her husband, Mohammad Hossein Ajorlou, said on Twitter.

The trial of Niloufar Hamedi, journalist at the reformist daily Shargh, began the day after that of another journalist, Elaheh Mohammadi, 36. The two women were jailed for covering up the September 16 death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd who was arrested in Tehran by vice squad for allegedly violating the dress code of the islamic republicimposing in particular on women the wearing of the veil in public.

Accused of “propaganda” against the Islamic Republic

The two defendants, who have never been released, are tried separately and behind closed doors in Tehran. They are facing the death penalty after being accused on November 8 of “propaganda” against the Islamic Republic and conspiracy against national security. Niloufar Hamedi was arrested on September 20 after a report from the hospital where Mahsa Amini had spent three days in a coma before dying. Elaheh Mohammadi, who worked for the reformist newspaper Him Mihamwas arrested on September 29 after traveling to Saghez, the city of Mahsa Amini in Kurdistan province, to cover her funeral which had given rise to a demonstration.

Niloufar Hamedi was presented to Section 15 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran before Judge Abolghasem Salavati, renowned for the severity of his verdicts in political trials. According to the journalist’s husband, the family was unable to attend the hearing while the lawyers “did not have the opportunity to present their case”. The trial has been postponed to an unspecified date, he added.

“There was no time for the oral defense,” he told Shargh Parto Borhanpour, the lawyer of Niloufar Hamedi, adding however that the lawyers had been able to present their objections and their requests. The lawyers protested against “Niloufar Hamedi’s lack of access to a lawyer during his detention” and demanded that the trial be held “publicly”, she added.

“A judicial farce”

Several hundred people, including members of the security forces, were killed and thousands arrested, including several dozen journalists, during the demonstrations which were held in October and November before declining. Seven men were executed for their involvement in this movement.

The press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders described the trials as “a legal sham”, stressing that the two journalists were “among the first to draw public attention to the death of Mahsa Amini”. The absence of a meeting with their lawyers before the trial “confirms that we are witnessing a judicial farce” which “aims only to legitimize the violent repression of these two journalists”, adds RSF.

The two women were awarded in May, together with imprisoned Iranian dissident Narges Mohammadi, the 2023 Unesco/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize.

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