Branch Nine of Iran’s Supreme Court has upheld a 62-month prison sentence, plus one day, for Kurdish writer and researcher Mozhgan Kavousi.
Presiously, Branch One of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Sari, Mazandaran Province, sentenced Kavousi to 39 months in prison on charges of “assembly and collusion against national security”, 15 months and one day in jail on charges of “insulting the supreme leader”, and eight months in prison for “propaganda against the state”.
Under Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, only the maximum sentence of 39 months’ imprisonment is applicable.
Kavousi was also acquitted of the charge of “spreading corruption on earth” (efsad-e fel arz), for which a death penalty is a possible verdict under the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Kavousi, a language and ethnic rights activist, was arrested at her family home in Nowshahr, Mazandaran Province, on 22 September 2022.
Following her arrest, she was initially interrogated at the Ministry of Intelligence’s detention centre in Sari before being transferred to Tonekabon Prison for pre-trial detention.
On 3 January 2023, she was released from Qaem Shahr Prison in Mazandaran Province on bail of 30 billion rials – nearly 60,000 USD.
Kavousi is a former political prisoner who was released from Kachouei Prison in Karaj in January 2022 after spending 21 months in prison.
