JURIST - Paper Chase: Daughter of former Iran president sentenced to six months

[JURIST] The daughter of former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani [BBC profile] was sentenced on Tuesday to six months in prison after being convicted of spreading propaganda against the country's current government. Faezeh Hashemi, who is a former member of Iran's Parliament [official website, in Persian], is also forbidden from being a member of any political party [Guardian report] and must refrain from any "media or online activities" for five years. Hashemi's conviction stems from her activities during and after the 2009 Iran elections [BBC report] in which she supported the candidate opposing current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [BBC profile] and participated in protests contesting the election results. In an interview [text] Hashemi gave to Roozonline, she accused supporters of the current Iranian government of harassing her. The interview is believed to have been what prompted the current regime to impose the six-month prison sentence. Hashemi has 20 days to appeal her sentence.

Hashemi is one of several opposition figures that have been detained and charged in connection with the wave of civil unrest following the disputed re-election of Ahmadinejad. Last week Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Court sentenced opposition figure [JURIST report] and former Iranian foreign minister Ebrahim Yazdi to eight years in prison for attempting to act against national security. Yazdi was also banned from civic activities for five years in the closed-door trial reportedly held in early November. In August Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari-Dolatabadi said that approximately 100 people imprisoned for their participation in the massive 2009 presidential election protests have been pardoned and released [JURIST report] by Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei [official profile]. In March Iranian opposition leaders Mir-Hossein Mousavi [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] and Mehdi Karroubi [NYT profile; JURIST news archive] and their wives were arrested and jailed [JURIST report].