Tehran University Student Activist Sentenced to 6 Years in Prison
Published by Ali on November 10, 2020
International Liberty Association: Student activist Soha Mortezaei was sentenced to six year in prison for holding a solitary sit-in outside Tehran University in protest to being banned from education for her activities.
The verdict which has been announced to Mortezaei’s lawyer has been issued by notorious Judge Abolqasem Salavati of Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court.
The last hearing of Mortezaei’s case was held on 9 September this year, at the Branch 15 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court.
Soha Mortezaei, the former secretary of Tehran University students’ council, was arrested on 17 November 2019 after she launched a 21-day sit-in at the university to protest being denied enrolment in a PhD program because of her activities.
She was in Tehran University’s Fatemiyeh Dormitory when she received a text message to go to the front gate. There, she was brutalized and abducted along with two other students and taken away.
She was first taken to Ward 2A of Evin Prison run by the Revolutionary Guards, where she was exposed to tremendous pressure and interrogation.
The student activist Soha Mortezaei protested her unjust detention and started a 22-day hunger strike on 22 December 2019.
She was then taken to women’s Qarchak Prison in Varamin on the on 31 December 2019.
She was temporarily released from Qarchak Prison on 22 January 2020, after depositing a 500-million-toman bail.
Student activist Soha Mortezaei has a graduate of political sciences. She won admission to the doctorate level as the 10th ranking student, but the Intelligence Ministry and the university’s intelligence department prevented her from continuing her education, something that provoked her to hold a solo sit-in outside Tehran University’s library for 21 days.
During a meeting with the Mortezaei family in October 2019, Esmail Soleimani, the head of security at the University of Tehran, threatened to force electric shock therapy on Soha “if she refuses to stop her activities.”
ILA: The intelligence Department of Tehran University summoned the family and told them to sign a paper indicating their consent to transfer Soha Mortezaei to a mental hospital where she could receive “electric shock treatment” to come to her senses, otherwise they would add 2.5 years to her 6-year prison term. Apparently a psychologist was also present at the meeting. The Mortezaei family did not sign any papers.
