Iranian courts have reduced the jail terms for two female journalists, Elaheh Mohammadi and Niloufar Hamedi, who were charged with collaborating with the United States. Their lawyers announced this news in reformist newspapers on Sunday. Mohammadi, 37, and Hamedi, 31, have been released on bail after spending over a year in Tehran’s Evin prison. They were initially incarcerated for their coverage of the September 2022 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, an event that sparked nationwide protests in Iran.
In January, Iran’s judiciary announced new proceedings against the two women for posing for pictures without the mandatory headscarf upon their release. However, two separate appeals courts in Tehran ruled to acquit the women of the collaboration charges, as reported by Shargh and Ham Mihan dailies.
Initially, Mohammadi was sentenced to six years in prison, while Hamedi received a seven-year sentence. They also received five-year sentences each for collusion and conspiring against state security and one year for propaganda against the Islamic republic. According to their lawyers, the appeals court upheld these remaining sentences and they will be served concurrently. However, the lawyers expressed hope that the journalists could be freed under an amnesty announced by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last year.
“Considering that the remaining two accusations meet the full conditions of the amnesty directive of 2023, we hope that Elaheh Mohammadi will be pardoned, and this case will be closed by issuing a suspension of execution order,” stated Mohammadi’s lawyer Shahab Mirlohi to Ham Mihan newspaper. Hamedi’s lawyers issued a similar statement.
Hamedi, a photographer for Shargh, was arrested less than a week after Amini’s death for posting a picture of her grieving family on social media. Mohammadi, a reporter for Ham Mihan, was arrested after traveling to Amini’s hometown of Saqez, in the western Iranian province of Kurdistan, to cover her funeral, which turned into a demonstration.
Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, was arrested for allegedly violating strict dress rules for women, which have been in place since shortly after Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution. Following her death, months-long protests rocked Iran, resulting in hundreds of deaths, including dozens of security personnel, and thousands of arrests. Nine men were executed in cases related to the protests, which Iranian authorities labeled “foreign-instigated riots.”
