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Teachers’ Rights Activist Sentenced to 74 Public Lashes and Prison for Holding Sit-In in Iran

Teachers' Rights Activist Sentenced to 74 Public Lashes and Prison for Holding Sit-In in Iran

The Iranian regime’s Judiciary in Isfahan Province, central Iran, has sentenced a teacher to three years in prison, 74 lashes in public and a fine for holding a sit-in outside the Education Department’s local office last December in protest to the arrest of fellow teachers.

Branch 103 of the Shahreza Penal Court sentenced Hamidreza Rahmati, a member of the Isfahan Teachers’ Association, to 18 months imprisonment and 74 lashes in public on the charge of “disrupting public order by carrying out an abnormal act outside the Education Department building”. The court also sentenced him to another 18 months in prison and a 20 million rial fine (around US $600) for “sending messages on social media encouraging violence.”

The teachers’ rights activist was arrested in December 2018 for holding a solitary nine-day sit-in outside the Shahreza Education Department in protest to the largescale arrest of teachers during their nationwide strike. He was released on bail.

The court also ordered Rahmati to write and publish a list on social media containing 40 services and achievements of the Iranian regime during its 40-year rule.

Following a teachers’ strike in Iran on November 13 and 14, 2018 in more than 80 cities, the regime’s security forces detained a number of teachers and their supporters. The Iran Teachers Coordination Council, the organization that called for the strike, said in a statement that at least 30 activists were summoned while 12 teachers were detained.

Teachers’ rights activists are systematically persecuted by the mullahs’ regime.