An Iranian journalist who was arrested after covering the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, which sparked widespread protests in Iran, denied the allegations at the start of her trial in Tehran on Tuesday, her husband said.
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Niloufar Hamedi, 30, told the court that she “did her job as a journalist within the law and did not commit any act against the security of Iran,” her husband wrote on Twitter. , Mohammad Hossein Ajorlou.
The trial of Niloufar Hamedi, a journalist for the reformist daily Shargh, began the day after that of another journalist, Elaheh Mohammadi, 36.
The two women were jailed for covering up the September 16 death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman. She was arrested in Tehran by the Morality Police, who accused her of violating the Islamic Republic’s dress code and, most notably, of requiring women to wear the veil in public.
The two accused, who were never released, will be separated in Tehran and tried behind closed doors. They face the death penalty after being accused on November 8 of “propaganda” against the Islamic Republic and conspiring against national security.
Niloufar Hamedi was arrested on September 20 following a report from the hospital where Mahsa Amini had been in a coma for three days before his death.
Elaheh Mohammadi, who worked for the reformist newspaper Ham Miham, was arrested on September 29 after traveling to Saghez, the town of Mahsa Amini in Kurdistan province, to cover her funeral, which sparked protests.
process postponed
Niloufar Hamedi was brought before Branch 15 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court before Judge Abolghasem Salavati, who is known for the harshness of his sentences in political trials.
According to the journalist’s husband, the family could not attend the hearing because the lawyers “did not have an opportunity to present their case”.
The trial has been postponed indefinitely, he added.
“There was no time for the oral defense,” Parto Borhanpour, Niloufar Hamedi’s lawyer, told Shargh, but added that the lawyers were free to present their objections and demands.
The lawyers protested “Niloufar Hamedi’s lack of access to a lawyer while in detention” and demanded that the trial be held “in public,” she added.
During demonstrations in October and November, hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, were killed and thousands arrested, including dozens of journalists, before they left. Seven men were executed for their involvement in this movement.
The press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders called the trials a “legal scam” and stressed that the two journalists “were among the first to draw public attention to the death of Mahsa Amini.”
The absence of a pre-trial meeting with their lawyers “confirms that we are witnesses to a judicial farce” which “only aims to legitimize the violent repression of these two journalists,” adds RSF.
The two women, along with jailed Iranian dissident Narges Mohammadi, were awarded the 2023 Unesco/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize in May.