Inmate boycotts court following global outcry over Iranian labor activist’s death

As 31 international human rights organizations call for the release of Sharifeh Mohammadi, a labor activist sentenced to death, a Kurdish political prisoner has boycotted her court proceedings in protest.

They have condemned the accusations against Mohammadi as unfounded, asserting that Iran’s security institutions fabricated the case.

In a joint statement published by the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), the rights groups urged Iran’s judiciary to drop all charges against Mohammadi and to cease the systematic harassment of women. “We ask the Iranian judiciary to immediately and unconditionally revoke all charges against Sharifeh Mohammadi," the statement read.

On July 4, Mohammadi was sentenced to death by Branch 1 of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Court in Rasht, under Judge Ahmad Darvish Goftar. She was convicted on charges of "armed rebellion" due to her alleged membership in the national Labor Unions Assistance Coordination Committee (LUACC), which operates legally in Iran, and the banned Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan.

Both Mohammadi and her family have consistently denied her involvement with these organizations.

"The charges were brought against her because of her activities in defense of workers' rights, which were not only peaceful but also legal and within the framework of the country's laws,” the statement added.

It comes amid major crackdowns on labor protests which intensified after the Women, Life, Freedom uprising of 2022. Iran's economic crisis has seen calls for better working conditions and pay for workers across a range of industries.

The Campaign to Defend Sharifeh Mohammadi, supported by her family, has launched an online petition calling for the annulment of her death sentence and her immediate release. The petition has garnered over 5,000 signatures. “Sharifeh has no membership in any armed organization or political entity,” the petition asserts.

Other rights groups, including the US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), have also called for the immediate overturning of Mohammadi’s death sentence, expressing concern for other prisoners at risk of execution based on similarly dubious charges. Among them are Pakhshan Azizi and Varisheh Moradi, who also face "armed rebellion" charges.

In protest against the death sentences of Mohammadi and Azizi, Kurdish political prisoner Varisheh Moradi, currently imprisoned in Evin, refused to attend her second court session on Sunday.

“I will not go to court in protest against the death sentences handed down to my comrades Sharifeh Mohammadi and Pakhshan Azizi, and I do not recognize a court that does not issue fair judgments,” Moradi wrote in her defense letter, published by Iranian women’s rights group Bidarzani.

Moradi was scheduled for a second court session on August 4 before Judge Salavati, notoriously known as the “judge of death,” at Branch 15 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court.

Following her refusal to attend, her lawyers, who have been denied access to her case details, were informed that the session has been postponed to a later date, according to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN).

Moradi was arrested on August 1 last year and spent 13 days in Iran’s intelligence ministry detention in Sanandaj before being transferred to Ward 209 of Evin Prison in Tehran.

In her defense letter, Moradi described the severe mistreatment she endured from the moment of her arrest, stating she was subjected to “torture and physical assault.”

She described being subject to giving forced false confessions at Tehran's Evin prison, a tactic commonly used by Iranian authorities to justify the issuance of death sentences or long prison verdicts.

“I was transferred to Ward 209 of Evin House of Detention, where I spent four and a half months under intense pressure during interrogations that included torture, contradictory and deceptive fabricated scenarios, threats of character assassination, and forced confessions. I suffered severe headaches, constant nosebleeds, and worsening neck and back pain.”

“These were the gifts of my days in solitary confinement,” she added.

So far this year, 300 people have been executed in Iran. It follows record numbers last year when over 850 were killed.