The Revolutionary Court of Sardasht handed down prison sentences to 15 porters after convicting them of “carrying smuggled goods.”
The sentences are subject to appeal within 20 days according to the law.
The names of the porters with their convictions are as follows:
- Omid Ghorbani, sentenced to six months behind bars, paying fine
- Yousef Ghorbani, sentenced to six months behind bars, paying fine
- Kamal Alizadeh, sentenced to 10 months behind bars, paying fine
- Keyvan Allah Moradi, sentenced to six months behind bars, paying fine
- Jamal Rahimi, sentenced to eight months behind bars, paying fine
- Loghman Atashrak, sentenced to six months behind bars, paying fine
- Reza Sahranavard, sentenced to eight months behind bars, paying fine
- Zaniar Haji-Khalani, sentenced to eight months behind bars, paying fine
- Mostafa Aziz-Zadeh, sentenced to eight months behind bars, paying fine
- Mohammad Rahimi, sentenced to eight months behind bars, paying fine
- Zaniar Zarei, sentenced to six months behind bars, paying fine
- Sedigh Fegh Hosseinpour, sentenced to eight months behind bars, paying fine
- Saber Yahyapour, sentenced to six months behind bars, paying fine
- Sedigh Zhaleh, sentenced to six months behind bars, paying fine
- Sedigh Padarshi, sentenced to 10 months behind bars, paying fine
Authorities take harsh measures against porters under the pretext of smuggling while the widespread aspect of smuggled goods and currency in Iran confirms this reality that the “small smugglers,” who are constantly arrested and even killed by state police, are actually a very small piece of a very large puzzle.
The state-run Ebtekar daily posted an article in December 2016, unveiling startling remarks made by regime officials over the systematic nature smuggling of goods, and how this phenomenon has become an established method for the Iranian regime.
“Small ships, load-carriers and smugglers are only a small percentage of the country’s smuggling dilemma. A large portion of smuggled goods entering the country are far more intense than these simple individuals… confronting such smugglers is only answering to a small percentage of the problem,” the piece reads.
“Considering the statistics provided by official organs, smuggled imports value at $15 billion. Our official imports are around $50 billion, and again based on the numbers of manufactured goods imported into the country, including vehicles, adds up to around $5 billion. Therefore, the smugglers are importing consumable goods. This means the value of goods smuggled into the country is three times that of official trade,” the article writes citing Majid-reza Hariri, deputy of Iran-China Chamber of Commerce.
“When we $25 billion worth of smuggled goods in the country, it means that this phenomenon is far beyond a bunch of load-carriers and small ship owners, and we are faced with a large mafia being behind all this,” the article continued, citing Nosser Mousavi Laregani, a member of the Iranian parliament’s economic commission.
