Condemning Hamas Earns Iranian Woman an 18-Year Prison Sentence

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A prominent female Iranian dissident and political prisoner was given an additional 18-and-a-half-year prison sentence by the Islamic Republic after she released a statement condemning the October 7 attacks by Hamas against Israel and voicing her support for Israel.

Fatemeh Sepehri, a vocal critic of the Islamic Republic and a widely revered figure among Iranian dissidents, has been sentenced to an additional 18 and a half years in prison after she condemned Hamas’s attacks against Israel on October 7th and standing in solidarity with Israel. Despite suffering from a heart ailment and poor health during her time in prison, Sepehri issued a statement supporting Israel and condemning Hamas following the October 7th attacks, which the Iranian regime saw as an act of defiance.

“I condemn Hamas’s attack on Israel and say loudly that the Iranian nation stands by the Israeli nation. The Islamic Republic and its agents spend Iran’s wealth to buy bullets and attack Israel. We, the people of Iran, neither want war nor the killing of defenseless people. I again condemn Hamas’s attack. Since the rise to power of Ali Khamenei and the founding of the Islamic Republic, the Middle East has not seen peace,” Sepehri said in her statement translated by news outlet Iran International.

The additional prison sentences against Sepehri were handed down by Judge Hossein Yazdankhah of Branch 5 of the Mashhad Revolutionary Court following the court’s second session on June 6th. This information, along with the breakdown of Fatemeh’s charges, was revealed by her brother, Asghar Sepehri.

Asghar said that the charges filed against his sister were extensive and severe. She was sentenced to an additional 18 and a half years in prison on multiple charges, such as seven years for supporting Israel, a further seven years for gathering and colluding to conspire against Iran’s national security, three years for insulting Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and one year and six months for spreading propaganda against the Islamic Republic.

Aside from Fatemeh, her brothers Mohammad-Hossein Sepehri and Hossein Sepehri have also received severe prison sentences for similar charges, and they were sentenced to 8 years and five and a half years in prison, respectively.

“They have built a case against our daughter resulting in 18 and half years imprisonment for condemning Hamas,” Fatemeh’s elderly mother decried in a video that was widely shared on X (formerly known as Twitter).

Fatemeh has already faced a lengthy prison sentence in 2022 following the Women, Life, Freedom protests that emerged in Iran against the Islamic regime following the death of Mahsa Amini under the custody of the country’s morality police. Fatemeh’s mother also said that after she was arrested, Fatemeh spent over 30 days under the custody of the regime’s intelligence ministry undergoing interrogations before she was transferred to the Vakilabad prison. Fatemeh’s brother also reported that she was recently subjected to “psychological torture by a judiciary psychiatrist.”

Even though she was severely ill and just had her open heart surgery last year, Fatemeh was transferred back to her prison following her surgery.

“After her open heart surgery, they took her from CCU to prison. In prison, they closed the only window through which she could see the sky,” Fatemeh’s mother added. 

Her brothers, Mohammad Hossein and Hossein, were attending Fatemeh while she was in the hospital when Iranian security forces arrested them.

“Hossein was in prison for three months and released on bail. Eight months have passed, and now it is nine months since Mohammad is in prison. Mohammad has not been able to speak a word. Hossein hasn’t released any statements, yet they filed a case against them [alleging] ‘you have spoken against us,’ which they haven’t,” Fatemeh’s mother also said.

Asghar echoed his mother’s statements and further added that Fatemeh’s phone calls from prison are being strictly monitored, and she is being denied medical leave from prison.

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