Zara Mohammadi
Age: 31
Activities/Rights: Kurdish language rights
Status: Released
Judicial status: Pardoned
Violations: Arbitrary arrest and detention, lack of due process, access to lawyer, unfair trial, familial punishment, denial of medical care
Zara Mohammadi is the director of Nojin Cultural Association, teaching Kurdish language and culture. She was arrested with two other members of the Association on 23 May 2019 and while they were released days later, she was detained for over six months. She later said that she had been under duress to make false televised confessions that she was co-operating with Kurdish opposition groups, which she refused to do and was denied access to a lawyer. She was released on bail on 2 December 2019. On 12 July 2020, she was summoned to Branch One of the Revolutionary Court in Sanandaj and sentenced to ten years imprisonment for “forming a group against national security.”
Zara received a text on 13 February 2021 informing her that Branch Four of the Provincial Court of Appeals, presided over by Judge Mostafa Tayari, had upheld a five-year prison sentence in her case, with her lawyers served with the verdict later. Zara’s request for a judicial review per Article 477 of the CCP was rejected and she surrendered to serve her sentence on 8 January 2022. She was denied medical treatment behind bars and kept with ordinary crime prisoners in breach of the principle of separation of crimes. Zara was released from prison on 10 February 2023 as part of the prison pardons announced to mark the anniversary of the 1979 Revolution. Following her release, Zara recorded a message where she stated that she had not requested amnesty or forgiveness and had been forced out of prison.