Somayeh Kargar

Age: 

Activities/Rights: Women’s rights

Status: Released

Judicial status: Case closed

Violations: Arbitrary arrest and detention, access to lawyer, lack of due process, unfair trial, prolonged solitary confinement, denial of medical care

Somayeh Kargar is a Kurdish women’s rights activist who was arrested by security forces during a raid of her home on 16 October 2020 in relation to her online women’s rights activism. She was taken to Ward 2A of Evin Prison where she was held in limbo for four months on what her family were told were “internet crimes.” During a visit, her mother was warned against speaking in Kurdish with her daughter, to which she responded: “I can’t express my feelings to my child in any language other than Kurdish.” Somayeh suffers from a rare eye condition which was under the treatment of specialists in France. She was prevented from making her scheduled appointment due to her arrest and denied her medication which led to a deterioration of her condition in Evin Prison. She was transferred to Qarchak Prison after completing four months of interrogations. 

On 4 August 2021, Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court sentenced her to six years imprisonment for “participating in the running of an illegal group” and eight months for “propaganda against the system.” As a result of not being able to afford the set 500 million tomans bail set, she was detained for an extra week before being released on bail on April 28. Shortly after Somayeh’s lawyer, Mostafa Nili was arrested on 14 August 2021,  his client case files including that of Somayeh, were found scattered outside Evin Prison. On 4 September 2022, Mr Nili tweeted that the Forensic Medical Organisation had ruled Somayeh unfit to serve her sentence which was reduced to a fine and her case closed.