Saba Kord Afshari ( fa, صبا کردافشاری) is an Iranian
political prisoner
A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention.
There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although n ...
. She appeared without a head scarf and talked about it on social media.
Arrest
She appeared without a
head scarf
A headscarf is a scarf covering most or all of the top of a person's, usually women's, hair and head, leaving the face uncovered. A headscarf is formed of a triangular cloth or a square cloth folded into a triangle, with which the head is cov ...
, and talked about it on social media. She was arrested on 2 August 2018. In August 2018, she was sentenced to one year in prison on the charge of “disrupting the public order” at Branch 28 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court led by Judge Moghiseh. She was released on 14 February 2019 when
Ali Khamenei pardoned a large number of prisoners. Following her release, Afshari,
Maryam Akbari Monfared and
Yasaman Aryani
Yasaman Aryani is an Iranian political prisoner. She appeared without a head scarf, and talked about it on social media.
Biography
In August 2018, Aryani was arrested at a protest in Tehran with other activists, while assisting an old woman the ...
wrote a letter denouncing prison conditions in Iran.
On June 1, 2019, Ms. Kord Afshari was rearrested; her trial was held on August 19, 2019. Her mother
Raheleh Ahmadi was also arrested. On September 26, 2019, she was sentenced by Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran, presided over by Judge Iman Afshari. Her sentences included 15 years of imprisonment on the charge of “promoting corruption and prostitution through appearing without a headscarf in public” 1 year and 6 months in prison on the charge of “propaganda against the state” and 7 years and 6 months in prison on the charge of ” assembly and collusion with an intent to commit a crime against the national security”, which adds up to a total of 24 years in prison.
In December 2019, the Tehran Court of Appeals reduced her sentence to 9 years, 7.5 of which are imposable by law. Her sentence was later reduced to 5 years.
In December 2020 she was transferred from
Evin prison to
Qarchak women’s prison. While there, she has suffered from several health conditions, such as chronic ulcers, and has had trouble receiving treatment for them.
[ She has contracted ]COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...
at least once.[
]
US Congress
The 118th Congress
The 118th United States Congress is the next meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It is scheduled to meet in Washington ...
condemned the Iranian regime for its treatment of "Saba Kord Afshari, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for posting videos to social media without a hijab and transferred into Ward 6 of the notorious Qarchak Women's Prison."[https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-concurrent-resolution/7/text]The condemnation was bipartisan and almost universal.
See also
* 2017–19 Iranian protests against compulsory hijab
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Afshari, Saba Kord
Hijab
Living people
Iranian human rights activists
Women's rights activists
Iranian prisoners and detainees
Prisoners and detainees of Iran
Year of birth missing (living people)