Soma Pour-Mohammadi, a Kurdish language teacher and a member of the board of directors of the Nozhin Socio-Cultural Association in Sanandaj, Kurdistan Province, has been sentenced to 10 years of exile imprisonment in Kermanshah Prison by Branch One of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Sanandaj on charges of “forming groups with the aim of undermining national security”.
The verdict comes after similar sentences were handed down to three other Nozhin board members, Seyvan Ebrahimi, Srwa Pour-Mohammadi and Edris Menbari, who were each sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that the trial of Soma Pour-Mohammadi took place on 17 April in Branch One of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Sanandaj, presided over by Judge Karami. The verdict was officially announced on 20 April.
Previously, Pour-Mohammadi had also been sentenced to one year’s suspended imprisonment by Branch 106 of the Criminal Court Two of Sanandaj on charges of “disturbing public order”.
Soma Pour-Mohammadi was arrested on 18 January 2023 while following the case of her husband, Edris Menbari, another member of the Nozhin board, at the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Sanandaj.
She was provisionally released on 13 February 2023 on bail of 10 billion rials – nearly 14,000 USD.