Four members of the Kurdistan Teachers Union in Marivan, Aram Ghaderi, Aram Mohammadi, Tahsin Mostafa and Seyvan Soleymani, have been sentenced to four months in prison each by the Islamic Revolutionary Court in the city on charges of “propaganda against the state”.
The court suspended the four-month prison sentences for two years.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that the court session took place on 21 June and that the defendants were informed of the verdict in recent days.
The Marivan Prosecutor and officials from the Ministry of Intelligence accused the teachers of publishing content in support of the anti-government uprising of Women, Life, Freedom, distributing pictures of the executed Kurdish teacher Farzad Kamangar and attending teachers’ union meetings, which led the court to issue the verdict under Article 500 of the Islamic Penal Code.
Ghaderi, Mohammadi, Mostafa, and Soleymani were arrested by security forces on 15 June 2022, and were released on bail after three days in custody.
Their case was referred to the first branch of the Marivan Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office in February 2024, leading to the current charges.
In a similar move last year, the Kurdistan provincial office of the Ministry of Education excluded several Kurdish teachers, including Ghaderi and Mostafa, from the “Teacher Ranking System” because of their participation in union activities and support for the Women, Life, Freedom uprising.
