Iran: Civil Activist Gets 11 Years In Jail

Nargess Mohammadi, the deputy head of Iran’s Human Rights Defenders Centre and chief executive of the National Council of Peace, has been sentenced to 11 years in prison by the Islamic Republic judiciary.

In a statement to the BBC, Mohammadi said she will challenge the sentence, maintaining: “I am neither political nor a seditionist and do not accept such a sentence for myself.”

Mohammadi was summoned in April 2010 for being a member of the Human Rights Defenders Centre and was released on bail of $50,000. She was arrested once more the following June and was held for another month.

Mohammadi is charged with “assembly and collusion against national security and membership in organizations that aim to disrupt national security as well as propaganda against the regime.”

Mohammadi emphasized that she is a civil activist and challenged the language of the sentencing, which accuses her of “insistently denying the charges against her.”