Raha Ahmadi
Age:
Activities/Rights: Women’s rights
Status: Released
Judicial status: None
Violations: Arbitrary arrest and detention, access to lawyer, lack of due process, unfair trial
Raha Ahmadi, a civil activist and campaigner against forced hijab. After Yasaman Aryani and Monireh Arabshahi were arrested for handing out flowers and pastries to fellow passengers in a women’s only carriage on the Tehran metro on International Women’s Day 2019, she appeared in a video posted online, handing out flowers to passengers with other activists in the Tehran metro in support of the detained mother and daughter. She was arrested by plainclothes agents on her way to work on 4 August 2019 and taken to Vozara Detention Centre before being transferred to Qarchak Prison in Varamin. On 4 December 2019, Raha was sentenced to two years imprisonment for “assembly and collusion against national security” by Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, presided by Judge Salavati. Her sentence was upheld by the Tehran Court of Appeals on 19 February 2020. Raha was furloughed on a number of occasions during her detention, the last of which was from 10-27 March 2021, she was released from prison on 31 March 2021.