Iran: PMOI Sympathizers, Forough Taghipour and Marzieh Farsi Sentenced to 15 Years Each and Zahra Safaei to 5 Years in Prison
iran mek supporters jailed (1)
Written by
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
NCRI logoThe judiciary of the Iranian regime has sentenced three women supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), Forough Taghipour, Marzieh Farsi, and Zahra Safaei, who are imprisoned in Evin Prison, to a total of 35 years in prison. The criminal judge Iman Afshari, head of Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court, has sentenced Forough Taghipour and Marzieh Farsi to 15 years and Zahra Safaei to 5 years in prison.
Forough Taghipour, 29 years old, a graduate in accounting, was arrested for the second time on August 21, 2023, in Tehran. Her uncle and two aunts, Hojatollah, Parvin, and Tayebeh Jabarianha, were martyred in the 1980s, and her father and sister are members of the PMOI in Ashraf 3 in Albania. She was previously imprisoned from March 2020, along with her mother Nasrin Jabarianha, on charges of connection with the PMOI and anti-regime propaganda, until February 2023.
Marzieh Farsi, 58 years old, a mother of two, who had previously spent three years in prison and suffers from cancer, was also arrested on August 21, 2023, in Tehran. Her brother, Hassan Farsi, was executed in the 1988 massacre of political prisoners. Her brother and two sisters are also in Ashraf 3.
Zahra Safaei, 60 years old and a mother of two, has been imprisoned for the third time. She spent 8 years in prison in the 1980s due to her support for the PMOI. In March 2020, she was arrested for the second time along with her daughter, Parastoo Moeini, and was released in February 2023. Her father, Haj Hasanali Safaei, a prominent Tehran bazaar merchant and a political prisoner during the Shah’s era, was executed in 1981 for providing aid to the PMOI. Her son, Massoud Moeini, has also been sentenced to 3 years in prison and is detained in Evin.
Iman Afshari, the head of Branch 26, one of the three branches of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, actively participates in issuing death sentences and long-term imprisonments for political prisoners and detainees of the 2017, 2019, and 2022 uprisings. On December 27, 2023, this criminal judge, along with Alghasi-Mehr, the head of the Tehran Judiciary, and some prison guards and interrogators, under the pretext of an inspection, went to the women’s political prisoners’ ward in Evin, where they were confronted by objections from the prisoners. Subsequently, the prison guards brutally beat the prisoners and took these two criminals out of the ward.
The religious fascism ruling Iran futilely tries to confront the joining of youth and women to Resistance units, flare-up of the people’s uprising, and the leading role of women with arrests, torture, executions, and long-term imprisonments. The fire of the Iranian people’s anger and youth is not extinguishable.
The Iranian Resistance once again calls on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, rapporteurs, and other relevant UN bodies, as well as all defenders of human and women’s rights, to take urgent action to free political prisoners in Iran, especially women prisoners, and urges an international fact-finding mission to visit Iran’s prisons and meet with the prisoners.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
17 February 2024