While ago, government news agencies announced the arrest of a group called “Neighborhood Youths of Urmia”. In this report, it was stated that 25 people were arrested in this case, 8 of them are women. The IRGC Intelligence Organization of the # West_Azerbaijan also announced the formation of this group is the continues of “#Teshkilat_Jovanan_Mahlat_Tehran” and linked the main members of this organization with spy services and announced the actions of the organizers of this organization as “inciting and deceiving the youth”.
According to the Campaign for the Defense of Political and Civil Prisoners, contrary to the initial announcement that 25 people were arrested, 16 people are currently under prosecution in this case. These people have been announced as members of an organization in a situation where none of them had known each other before. But during the interrogation, due to the pressure, they were forced to confess against each other. According to informed sources, the pressure and harassment of the arrested ranged from beatings to threats of rape.
A good number of the detainees are students, children and young people.
While IRGC information stated that the accused in this case are mostly adults, in reality, a good number of those arrested in this case are students, and the youngest person arrested is a 15-year-old girl student.
#Samaneh_Fathi, 15-year-old student; #Hossein_Ashuri, 18-year-old student; #Mohammadreza_Saifolahzadeh, #Ali_Ebrahimi, 18-year-old student; #Hadi_Hasanlou, #Hosam_Zhiyan, 17-year-old student; #Ali_Taba, 20-year-old student, and #Pouya_Azar_Homayun are among the defendants in this case, who have been released on bail and are awaiting trial.
The arrested were first interrogated in the IRGC intelligence detention center and then transferred to Urmia central prison. The case of most of them is currently being investigated in the 10th branch of the Urmia Revolutionary Court. This is despite the fact that some of those arrested in this case are under 18 years old, and their cases should be handled in the juvenile court according to the law.