A member of the Teachers’ Trade Association of the central province of Isfahan has been sentenced to three years behind bars, 74 lashes in public and paying fine for holding a sit in.
According to the sentence issued by the branch 103 of the Shahreza Penal Court, the activist teacher Hamidreza Rahmati, was sentenced to 18 months of prison and 74 public lashes on charges of “disrupting public order by carrying out an abnormal act outside the Education Department building”.
He was sentenced to another 18 months of prison and a 20 million toman fine (around $600) for “sending messages on social media that encouraged violence”.
Hamidreza Rahmati was arrested and then released on bail for going on hunger strike and holding a sit in, in the court yard of the Department of Education in Shahreza, Isfahan Province. He was demanding the release of teachers who were arrested last December during their nationwide strike.
Following a peaceful sit-in for teachers’ and education rights in Iran on November 13 and 14, 2018 the state security forces arrested several teachers, according to the Iranian Teachers’ Trade Association (ITTA).
In a statement ITTA said that at least 30 activists were summoned while 12 teachers were detained.
Teacher activists are systematically prosecuted by the Iranian regime. They are jailed and sentenced to hefty prison terms.
Four prominent teachers’ rights activists Esmail Abdi, Mahmoud Beheshti-Langroudi, Rouhollah Mardani and, Mohammad Habibi are in jail in Iran serving long prison sentences when the teachers’ held their sit-in.
