Atena Farghadani, Cartoonist from Tehran, Sentenced to Six Years in Prison

Hengaw; Tuesday, June 11, 2024

Atena Farghadani, a cartoonist imprisoned in the women's ward of Evin Prison, has been sentenced to a total of 6 years of imprisonment by the judiciary of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

According to a report received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Atena Farghadani was sentenced to 5 years in prison by Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court on charges of "insulting the sacred" and to 1 year in prison on charges of "propaganda against the government."

Mohammad Moghimi, Atena Farghadani's lawyer, emphasized on his social media page that the trial was a “sham trial,” adding, "The court has considered the maximum punishment for the two mentioned charges on the pretext of multiple crimes."

Atena Farghadani, a former political prisoner, was violently arrested on April 13 of this year while installing one of her works on the wall of Pasteur Street in Tehran .

She had also been sentenced in August 2014 to 12 years and 9 months of imprisonment on charges including "activities against the Islamic Republic of Iran" and "insulting members of parliament through drawing cartoons."

The prison sentence for this cartoonist was reduced to 18 months in the appeals court after about two years, and she was finally released from prison in May 2016.