Mohammad Najafi, a lawyer and a human rights activist, was sentenced to two years in prison by Branch 8 of the Central Appeals Court.
According to Voice of America, on Sunday June 23rd, 2019, Mohammad Najafi, a lawyer and a human rights activist detained in the central prison of Arak, was sentenced to two years of prison and a payment of 40 million Tomans by the Branch 8 of the Appeals Court on charges of “publishing lies to disturb public opinion”.
According to available information, this verdict is definitive and has been communicated to the imprisoned lawyer in Arak Central Prison.
The verdict was issued to Mohammad Najaf. In a previous case for the same charges, he was sentenced to one year in prison at Branch 102 of the Arak Court of Cassation, which was confirmed by Branch 9 of the Central District Court of Appeal.
The lawyer, who was previously arrested on Sunday, November 6, 1397, was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment and transferred to Arak Prison on Thursday, April 8, 1998, and was released from the central prison of Arak in a 3-year prison prosecution case.
He was arrested again by Arak Intelligence forces four days later on Monday, April 1st, 2019, and has been detained in Arak Central Prison since then.
At that time, it was reported that Mr. Najafi’s second arrest was regarding his 10-year prison sentence and his second part in his case.
Earlier, Mohammad Najafi’s 10 years imprisonment, as well as the January 2019 protests on charges of “co-operating with hostile states through the transfer of news and information through interviews”, was confirmed by the appeals court.
In recent years, the Islamic Republic of Iran has arrested many lawyers (especially, lawyers active in the field of human rights), including the imprisonment and detention orders of Nasrin Sotoudeh, Mohammad Najafi, Mostafa Daneshjou, and Abdolfattah Soltani.
These arrests have led Amnesty International to repeatedly warn Iran against the arrests of lawyers. In various statements, they have called on Iranian authorities to release lawyers such as Nasrin Sotoudeh, Zainab Taheri, and Abdolfattah Soltani.