Iran: Maryam Malek Transfered to Evin Prison

Parastoo Alahyaari, also a member of the One Million Signatures Campaign, was sentenced to a year mandatory prison sentence on the charge of spreading propaganda against the state.

The ruling by the court, which Alahyaari reviewed at the Revolutionary Courts on the morning of April 25, 2009, reads: “given the totality of information in the case and our investigations and the report by officials, as well as the defense statement by the accused, her confession that she is a member of the One Million Signatures Campaign, her confessions that she invited people to her home and convened numerous meetings for the purpose of moving forth the goals of the Campaign and its programs, and herself is engaged in signature collection toward the one million signatures the Campaign seeks to collect, with the excuse that the laws are discriminatory in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and her sending out information related to the Campaign to various sites whilst promoting the impression that the Islamic Republic is a system with legal discrimination, and also spreading of propaganda against the state for use by countries opposed to the Islamic Republic, and given the fact that the accused and other members [sent out this information] knowingly for misuse by foreign countries, the charge of actions against the state through the spread of propaganda against the holy Islamic Republic has been sufficiently proven. The courts, with reference to Amendment 550 of the Islamic Penal Code, sentence the accused to one year mandatory prison sentence.”

In the last court hearing in the case of Parastoo Alahyaari, which was held on the April 13, 2009 in the 28th Branch of the Revolutionary Courts, Judge Mogheisi did not allow Parastoo or her lawyer to present an oral defense in response to the charges against her, and only a written defense in relation to the case against Alahyaari which was prepared by her lawyer and submitted to the courts, was accepted by Judge Mogheisi.