The authorities of the Velayat-e Faqih regime continue to intensify their repressive and pre-emptive measures against male and female activists, particularly in the Ahwaz region, in a desperate attempt to control society and suppress any potential popular movement. In this context, the authorities have imposed further restrictions and intensified arrests under baseless pretexts, seeking to weaken active members of society and silence their demands for freedom and justice.
Against this deeply concerning backdrop, the Ahwaz Human Rights Organization (AHRO) has learned with profound concern of the unjust judicial sentences issued against nine Ahwazi Arab women civil activists and strongly condemns these rulings.
According to documented information, on 20 September, the Ahvaz Revolutionary Court summoned the nine civil activists and heard their defence. The court subsequently sentenced each of them to five years in prison, amounting to a combined total of 45 years of imprisonment. The presiding judge also stated that their sentences could be reduced to one year of imprisonment if they agreed to compulsory participation in a one-year programme described as “intellectual or ideological-political rehabilitation.”
According to sources, these initial verdicts were issued after the women had been arrested more than a year and a half earlier because of their activities on social media. They were held for several months in intelligence detention facilities, where they reportedly faced severe physical and psychological pressure, before eventually being released on financial bail.
The charges brought against them included “membership in groups,” “propaganda against the Islamic Republic,” and “assembly and collusion to commit crimes against internal or external security.”The nine women sentenced are:
Saeideh Heidari-Rad\
mal Dehimavi
Kosar Asakereh
Ayat Mohammadi
Fatemeh Savari
Khadijeh Havali
Eftekhār Rostamizadeh
Seyedeh Fatemeh Hosseini
Ameneh Beit-Saya
The Ahwaz Human Rights Organization strongly condemns these proceedings and sentences, which it considers to be in clear violation of fundamental human rights and freedom of expression.
AHRO calls upon all international and humanitarian organisations, particularly the relevant United Nations bodies and agencies and the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, to take urgent action and exert serious pressure on the Iranian authorities to overturn these unjust sentences and secure the immediate and unconditional release of these activists and all those detained in connection with the case.
AHRO further calls for an investigation into the conditions under which these women were detained, in order to establish the circumstances of their detention and ensure their physical and psychological well-being.
Ahwaz Human Rights Organization (AHRO)
25 September 2026
