Iran Supreme Court orders retrial of labor activist sentenced to death News
Tasnim News Agency, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Iran Supreme Court orders retrial of labor activist sentenced to death

Iran’s Supreme Court ordered a retrial of labor rights activist Sharifeh Mohammadi who had been sentenced to death for treason, according to local media that spoke to her lawyer on Saturday. The order lifts her death sentence while she awaits a retrial.

In the Revolutionary Court conviction, Mohammadi’s alleged membership in the National Labor Unions Assistance Coordination Committee (LUACC) was included as evidence, even though LUACC is a legally established independent labor organization in Iran. Mohammadi claimed that she had not been a member of LUACC for 10 years.

As a member of the International Labor Organization, a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), Iran is obliged to guarantee the right to form trade unions and to strike.

Mohammadi was sentenced to death by the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Rasht in July 2024. She was first arrested by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence in December 2023 and convicted for “armed rebellion against the state” based on allegations that she was a member of the banned Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KPIK). Mohammadi denied allegations that she was ever a member of KPIK.

According to the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), the Islamic Revolutionary Court  uses “national security-related charges to punish and suppress peaceful dissent.” The Revolutionary Court’s jurisdiction under Article 303 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is broad and can include political crimes. 

According to the Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA), at least 811 people were executed in Iran between October 10, 2023 and October 8, 2024. Inmates in over 20 Iranian prisons have been staging protests, including hunger strikes, against capital punishment for several months.

A Campaign for the Defense of Sharifeh Mohammadi has been founded, with human rights defender Nasrin Sotoudeh announcing her intention to begin a hunger strike if Mohammadi’s death sentence is not overturned.

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