Labor activist Younes Azadbar sentenced to nearly two years in Rasht
Hengaw – Saturday, October 4, 2025
Younes Azadbar, a 62-year-old Gilak labor activist and resident of Rasht in Gilan Province, has been sentenced by the Iranian judiciary to 22 months and 17 days in prison on charges of “propaganda against the state” and “insulting the Supreme Leader.”
According to information obtained by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, the verdict was issued by Branch 2 of the Rasht Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Mohammad-Ali Darvish-Goftar.
On May 5, 2025, Azadbar was arrested by agents of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Intelligence Organization, who raided his home in Rasht without presenting an arrest warrant. He was taken to an IRGC detention facility and released on bail a week later, on May 11.
Sources informed Hengaw that IRGC agents also searched his home and confiscated several personal belongings, including his mobile phone.
Azadbar had previously been arrested on July 18, 2023, and later released on bail in December 2023 for medical treatment. During that earlier detention, he was interrogated by Branch 1 of the Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office, where he faced accusations of “enmity against God (moharebeh),” “propaganda against the state,” and “membership in opposition groups.”
The Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations, in response to his latest conviction, stated that Azadbar has multiple pending judicial cases and has been imprisoned several times since the 1980s, spending a total of more than ten years in prisons of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
