Their journalism sparked a protest movement in Iran. They could end up in jail at any moment

Journalists Niloofar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi could be arrested and thrown back into prison at any moment for work that helped spark a mass protest movement in Iran.

The pair, first arrested in 2022, have been on bail since January, when they appealed their sentences on three charges related to their reporting on the death of a young woman in police custody.

This week they learned that their sentences have been reduced by almost half after one of the charges was dropped. But they still face five years behind bars; a punishment that according to the Iranian authorities can be carried out at any time.

The delay between the pronouncement of the verdict and its implementation is “a form of intimidation,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran.

“That means they keep them in the dark,” he said As it happens host Nil Köksal. “They will not have the freedom to do their jobs, and they will be under constant surveillance.”

Delivering the news of Mahsa Amini’s death

Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman, died on September 16, 2022, just days after being arrested by Iran’s moral police for allegedly violating the country’s mandatory headscarf law.

Iran has consistently maintained she died of a heart attack, but her loved ones and supporters say she was beaten to death by police.

Her death sparked a wave of protests across the country in what has become known as the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. It marks the biggest civil unrest in Iran since the 1979 revolution, which brought clerical rulers to power.

News of the death first spread through Iran, largely thanks to early reporting by Hamedi, who worked for the Shargh newspaper, and Mohammadi, who worked for the Ham-Mihan newspaper.

Hamedo and Mohammadi were arrested in 2022 and later sentenced to 13 and 12 years respectively on charges of conspiracy against national security, propaganda against the system and cooperation with the US government.

On Sunday, judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir told a news conference that the pair had been acquitted of the conspiracy charge, but the other charges remained.

LOOK | 1 year after Mahsa Amini’s death:

Defiance, crackdown in Iran a year after protests

The death of Mahsa Amini while in the custody of Iran’s morality police for wearing her headscarf too loosely sparked months of protests against what became one of the biggest threats the Islamic regime has ever faced. A year later, CBC’s Ellen Mauro explains what has changed and what hasn’t.

“These women have committed no crime. They are journalists doing their job. And by sentencing them to such a long prison term, they are criminalizing journalism,” Ghaemi said.

“The Islamic Republic continues to target, detain, imprison and put an end to people associated with the Woman, Life, Freedom movement.”

Reporters without borders, the International Press Institute and the Committee to Protect Journalists have all called for Hamedi and Mohammadi to be acquitted of all charges.

No amnesty for prominent activists

There were hopes that this would happen last year, when Iran announced that its supreme leader had granted amnesty to some 22,000 people arrested during the anti-government protests.

But since then says the nonprofit Human Rights Watch“Numerous activists, including feminist activists and women’s rights defenders, remain in prison or are at risk of being imprisoned soon.”

This also applies to Narges Mohammadi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize behind bars in 2023 for her role in the Woman, Life, Freedom protests.

She has been a long-time Iranian human rights activist and is currently serving multiple sentences of approximately twelve years in prison on charges including spreading propaganda against the state.

Her family says Iranian authorities punished her for winning the Nobel Prize, cutting off her communications with loved ones and repeatedly denying her requests for health care.

But her brother Hamidreza Mohammadi says it hasn’t broken her spirit.

“Narges’ love for life, freedom and happiness is not something that can be taken away from her,” he said As it happens last week, on the anniversary of his sister’s Nobel Prize.

‘She sings in prison. She dances with the other women in prison.”

How a war in the Middle East could affect prisoners

Ghaemi says he worries if tensions between Iran and Israel continue to escalate, war will break out and Iran will crack down even harder on dissidents in its own country.

He noted that in 1988, during the Iran-Iraq War, Iran thousands of political prisoners executed.

“We have seen that when cornered and drawn into an international conflict or war, their primary focus is on taking revenge on their domestic adversaries and the Iranian people. They consider them the most vulnerable,” he said.

“We believe that the more people understand the interconnection between the two, hopefully … all leverage will be used to prevent history from repeating itself.”

With files from Reuters and The Associated Press. Interview with Hadi Ghaemi produced by Nishat Chowdhury