The four-year prison sentence of the secretary of the Kurdistan branch of the National Unity Party and lawyer Farhad Mohammadi, given by Branch 1 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Sanandaj in June 2020 on charges of “acting against national security”, has been commuted to 10 months in prison in Court of Appeals of Kurdistan province.
The hearing has been held in the first quarter of 2021 in Branch 4 of the Court of Appeals, and Mohammadi has been officially informed of the sentence in recent days.
Reportedly, his licence to practice law has also been suspended.
The Kurdish activist was arrested on 4 January 2019, at the same time as a large wave of arrests of Kurdish environmental activists and members of the Kurdistan branch of the National Unity Party in Sanandaj and Kamyaran. He was held for nearly five months in solitary confinement in the detention centre of the Ministry of Intelligence in Sanandaj and was pressured to make a forced confession.
Mohammadi was transferred to the quarantine ward of Sanandaj Central Prison on 25 May 2019, after his interrogation was completed. However, contrary to the common procedure of commuting detention into release on bail in such situations, his temporary detention was illegally extended following the objection of the prosecutor of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Sanandaj.
During his entire detention, while his young daughter was hospitalised at the same time due to a serious illness, he managed to have only a brief visit with his family in the presence of interrogators.
One month after the lawyer’s arrest, 59 of his fellow lawyers issued an open letter demanding his release, emphasizing his professional background and reputation.
On 9 July 2019, he was released from Sanandaj Central Prison on a bail of 500 million Iranian Tomans – nearly 20,000 USD – after six months of detention.
