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Iran: Rafsanjani’s Daughter Tried Again after Prison Sentence | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Faezeh Rafsanjani (C), daughter of former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, attends a protest at the Ghoba mosque in northern Tehran June 28, 2009. QUALITY FROM SOURCE REUTERS/via Your View


London- Daughter of the late former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Faezeh Hashemi will face a new trial in April on undeclared charges, said Iran-based sources.

The Tehran Court for Government Employees had previously sentenced Rafsanjani’s daughter to six months in prison for “disturbing public opinion” and “spreading propaganda against the state,” the reformist Kalame website reported on March 17.

Hashemi’s brother, Mohsen Hashemi, a candidate for the Tehran municipal elections, said his supporting movement was “spontaneous”, denying any illicit behavior before the elections.

Now, the Tehran Revolutionary Court will convene on April 16 for Hashemi’s trial on charges brought against her by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi, a source told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). Those charges have not been made public.

The source added that Hashemi was not able to be present at her trial held at the Tehran Court for Government Employees.

Hashemi was summoned to the court a few days after the passing of her father (on January 8, 2017) and was not prepared to study the case file.

She asked the presiding Judge Farshid Dehghani to postpone trial, but he refused.

Hashemi served in Parliament from 1996 to 2000 as a reformist representative from Tehran, and published Zan, the first newspaper for Iranian women, in 1998 until it was banned a year later.

She was imprisoned for six months between September 2012 and March 2013 for “propaganda against the state” and barred from political and media activities for five years because of her support for the peaceful protests against the disputed result of Iran’s 2009 presidential election.

In March 2016 a high-ranking member of the judiciary vowed to punish Hashemi for meeting with a leader of Iran’s Bah’ai community and civil rights activists.