Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN): Mokhtar Zarei, a Kurdish Civil Rights activist, has been sentenced to three years of imprisonment on charges of participation in protest gathering and conspiracy against national security by the Branch 1 of the Revolutionary Court of Sanandaj.
According to reports received by KHRN, Mokhtar Zaraei was sentenced to three years of imprisonment in absentia on March 03 per Article 610 of the Islamic Penal Code at Branch 1 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Sanandaj chaired by Judge Saeedi who deals with security cases.
On September 2018, four political prisoners Zanjan and Loghman Moradi, Ramin Hussein Panahi and Kamal Ahmadnejad and the missile attack of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) on the headquarters of the Kurdish parties in the Kurdistan region let to a widespread protest in Kurdistan. Mokhtar Zarei was convicted due to publishing a video in this regard and called on people not to leave their homes to show their anger.
Other charges filed by the Kurdistan Intelligence Office at the Revolutionary Court included publication of an open letter addressed to the prosecutor in addition to the publication of Amnesty’s request from the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran regarding of the execution of Ramin Hussein Panahi and articles on the silence referendum.
On Jan 6, 2019, Mokhtar Zaraei was also sentenced to two years of imprisonment on the charge of insulting the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran and an additional year in prison for propaganda against the state by judge Behrooz Sharafi Yousofvand, head of Branch 2 of the Revolutionary Court of Sanandaj.