A 25-year-old British graduate has just been sentenced by a court in Tehran to serve up to a year in prison as punishment for trying to attend a men’s volleyball match. Ghoncheh Ghavami, who went to SOAS University in London but who holds both an English and Iranian passports, was told her fate last night in a closed court – it was not open to the public and her parents were not permitted to enter the courtroom, which sounds pretty scary in itself.
Ghoncheh was detained on June 20th this year outside Tehran’s Azadi Stadium, where she and 40 others were demanding that women be allowed to watch the volleyball match between Iran and Italy. It’s currently illegal for women in Iran to enter national stadiums or gather with men to watch sport in public. She was originally released after being detained by the police, but was re-arrested 10 days later when she went back to collect her belongings. She was then held in solitary confinement without access to her lawyer for weeks and interrogators have been accused of putting Ghoncheh under extreme psychological pressure. It’s been alleged that the interrogators threatened to move her to Gharchak Prison in Tehran Province where conditions are dismal, telling her she ‘would not walk out of prison alive’.
In October after beind detained for 100 days she went on a two-week hunger strike until she was eventually granted a trial. She was then charged with ‘activities and propaganda against the Islamic Republic.’
Her brother Iman has this to say to The Telegraph: ‘We hoped she would be released. She thought she had put up a good defence and was really happy with it.
‘But now we’re just really disappointed and shocked.’
Unsurprisingly considering the nature of the case and the allegations that have been made against Ghoncheh’s interrogators in Iran, Amnesty International’s UK director Kate Allen has come out to speak against Ghoncheh’s conviction.
‘This is an appalling verdict,’ Kate said to The Debrief. ‘It’s an outrage that a young woman is being locked up simply for peacefully having her say about how women are discriminated against in Iran. Ghoncheh is a prisoner of conscience and the Iranian authorities should quash the sentence and release her immediately and unconditionally. The authorities should also investigate allegations that Ghoncheh was subjected to death threats by her interrogators and provide compensation for her arbitrary detention and her prolonged solitary confinement.’
Amnesty are now in the process of updating their campaign for Ghoncheh and you can check out fresh info on the site here and a Change.org petition for Ghoncheh now has more than 700,000 signatures. Hopefully, with maintained international interest, pressure can be put on the Iranian government and Ghoncheh will be able to come home. Our thoughts are with her and her family.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.