Iranian Court of Appeals has reduced Kurdish female political prisoner Shahnaz Sadeghifar’s sentence of 15 years in prison to five years and one day in a hearing held through video-conference on 20 February, sources told the Kurdistan Human Rights Netwowrk (KHRN).


The Islamic Revolutionary Court of Orumiyeh had earlier sentenced Sadeghifar to 15 years in prison on charges of “acting against national security”.


A source familiar with the case of this political prisoner had previously told the KHRN that Sadeghifar and her daughter Ainaz Zare had gone to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq before a few years and had joined the lines of the Kurdistan Freedom Party for several years. However, in August 2019, “They returned to Iran due to the insistence of their families and in coordination with the Intelligence Organisation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps”.


According to this source, the border guards of Siranband in Baneh had detained Sadeghifar and her daughter upon their entry to Iran. But they released the two after receiving information from the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC in Orumiyeh. Sadeghifar and her daughter later handed themselves over to this military-security institution. After that, “the interrogators told them that they could be there the next day and could spend the first night with their families. The next day, they headed to the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC, where they were arrested and interrogated for two months.”


The source reported that Sadeghifar and her daughter were tortured and that security interrogators had asked her to collaborate with the IRGC and pressed them to obtain forced confessions. “Ms. Sadeghifar and her 17-year-old child Ainaz Zare were held in the same cell for about two months and were under constant interrogation. They were then transferred to Orumiyeh Central Prison.”


Shahnaz Sadeghifar’s trial was held on 21 July 2020 in Branch 2 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Orumiyeh, presided over by Judge Ali Sheikhlou. Two days later, while she was being held in Orumiyeh Central Prison, she was informed that the court had sentenced her to 15 years in prison on charges of “acting against national security” through “membership in the Kurdistan Freedom Party”.


Meanwhile, Sadeghifar’s daughter Ainaz Zare was released from prison on 16 November 2020, after spending 15 months in prison.