Sharifeh Mohammadi has been in prison since December 2023. The 46-year-old activist and engineer is accused of “armed rebellion against the state” in Iran. She now faces execution again.Already sentenced to death twice in 2024 and early 2025, this August the Supreme Court once again upheld the ruling.Her commitment to workers’ rights brought her to the attention of the authorities. She was a member of a committee for the formation of labor organisations in the northern Iranian coastal city of Rasht on the Caspian Sea, where she worked and lived with her family, including her 13-year-old son. The government considers the committee to be an “opposition group.”Under Iranian criminal law, three offenses are punishable by death: war against God (moharebeh), corruption on earth, and rebellion (baghi), lawyer Marzieh Mohebi told DW. “The relevant articles of the law are so vaguely worded that judges can apply them to almost any form of protest or political activity.”Mohebi has been living in exile in France for two years. In Iran, she built a network of female lawyers who represented women imprisoned without charges or in difficult circumstances.In September 2022, nationwide protests broke out following the death of 22-year-old Jina Mahsa Amini in police custody. Amini was allegedly not wearing the mandatory head covering for women correctly. A movement developed under the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom,” becoming a symbol of resistance to the compulsory headscarf and systematic discrimination against women.Many female lawyers were arrested during the systematic suppression of the demonstrations. A court in the northern Iranian city of Mashhad initiated proceedings against Mohebi before she could provide legal support for demonstrators who had been arrested.
Vague laws, harsh penalties
“It is not difficult to quickly turn ordinary people into ‘criminals’,” Mohebi said. “This practice is not a constitutional procedure based on the laws created by the Islamic Republic, but rather an expression of the regime’s desire to suppress any form of civil activity under the pretext of security. It shows that even in times of crisis, the regime continues to regard the suppression of domestic opposition as its most important task.“Sharifeh Mohammadi is a labor rights activist, feminist, and opponent of the death penalty. After her arrest in 2023, her family did not know where she was being held or why for months. Mohammadi later reported that she’d spent more than 200 days in solitary confinement where she was tortured and abused.In June 2024, the court in Rasht sentenced Mohammadi to death for “baghi.” A higher court overturned the verdict in October 2024 and ordered a retrial. But after a new trial, the death sentence was upheld in February 2025.“Under the laws of the Islamic Republic, a rebel is a person who has been directly involved in an armed uprising against the government,” said social and gender researcher Fatemeh Karimi. “Sharifeh, on the other hand, had no connection to armed actions. There is no evidence of this. What Sharifeh did was union activity in the context of labor protests, which in no way corresponds to the criminal definition of rebellion.“
Criticism in Iran and beyond
Human rights organisations have reported serious procedural flaws in her prosecution, calling it a politically motivated trial.The death sentences, for example, were handed down by two different judges who are first-degree relatives. Ahmad Darvish-Goftar, chairman of Criminal Court 1, is the son of presiding judge Mohammad Ali Darvish-Goftar of Criminal Court 2.The case has also drawn fierce international criticism. Several European trade unions, including those in Germany, France, and Sweden, as well as the International Trade Union Confederation, have called for the verdict to be overturned and for Mohammadi’s immediate release.Criticism of her death sentence is growing within Iran as well. The Iranian Teachers’ Trade Association condemned the verdict as “inhumane and unjust” in a statement, describing the death sentence as a means of spreading fear and suppressing collective labor movements.There has also been a video circulating on the internet of a peaceful gathering at a sugar cane factory in early August, where participants demanded a fair trial for Mohammadi. The works council of Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Agro-Industry Co. is one of the most active voices against repression and in support of workers’ rights.Amnesty International and numerous Iranian and international human rights organisations have called for the immediate withdrawal of the death sentence.
