The trial of three members of the board of directors of the Kurdistan-Marivan Teachers’ Union, Shaban Mohammadi, Eskandar Lotfi and Masoud Nikkhah, which was scheduled to be held at Branch 28 of Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Court, was postponed to another time due to the change of the hearing authority.
The activists will be tried in the same hearing as two detained French civilians Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris at Branch 15 of Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Court as their cases are related to each other, Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned.
Cécile Kohler, a member of the National Federation of Education, Culture and Vocational Training (FNEC FP-FO) in France, and her partner Jacques Paris, had travelled to Iran on a tourist visa in May 2022 and were arrested by security forces in Tehran.
Mohammadi, Lotfi, and Nikkhah were arrested by security forces in Marivan, Kurdistan province, on 1 May 2022.
Mohammadi was released after several hours of interrogation, but Lotfi and Nikkhah were transferred to the detention centre of this security-military institution in Sanandaj for interrogation.
Nikkhah was released from Marivan prison on 11 May 2022 but was re-arrested by security forces the next day.
Mohammadi was also re-arrested by security forces in Marivan on 11 May 2022.
Later, these three activists were transferred from the detention centre of the intelligence ministry in Sanandaj to a security ward in Tehran’s Evin Prison and released on a bail of 2 billion Tomans – nearly 40,000 USD – in August 2022.
