Iran Sentences Men Who Supported Women’s Protests Against Compulsory Hijab to Six Years Prison.

January 22, 2019 – Reza Khandan and Farhad Meysami have both been sentenced to six years imprisonment in Iran and banned from leaving the country or engaging in online activities for two years for peacefully protesting the country’s compulsory hijab law.

 “Iran wants to silence these men by jailing them for standing by women who want the hijab to be a choice, not a requirement,” said Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).

 “The only crime they committed is peacefully exercising their rights of freedom of speech and expression,” said Ghaemi. “Iran’s judiciary should heed their calls for a fair and public trial and release them.”

In an interview with CHRI, Khandan, the husband of imprisoned human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, said he was unlawfully denied a public trial.

On January 22, 2019, he and Meysami were both convicted of “assembly and collusion against national security” and “propaganda against the state” at Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran presided by Judge Abolqasem Salavati—notorious in Iran for bending to the wishes of security agencies.