IRAN HUMAN RIGHTS
Bahareh Hedayat, women’s and students’ rights activist
Political motivations are taking precedence over the law when it comes to activists such as Bahareh Hedayat, who is being kept in prison despite the completion of her sentence, legal expert Mohammad Oliaei-Fard told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.
“The fact is that the security apparatus is determined to use every means to punish political prisoners,” Oliaei-Fard said, and added that the Judiciary prevents political prisoners from using Article 134 of Iran’s New Islamic Penal Code, in order to keep them behind bars. According to this Article, if a person has been given multiple sentences, he or she should only serve the sentence with the highest punishment.
Accordingly, Bahareh Hedayat, a 34-year-old women’s and students’ rights activist, should have been released by the end of June 2015, and she was in fact served release orders by Branch 54 of the Appeals Court on August 12, 2015, because she had served her highest sentence, which was for five years in prison for “acting against national security and publishing falsehoods.”
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