Since 10 March 2024, Sepideh has repeatedly been sent summonses or called by telephone. Each time, Saman, Sepideh’s brother, or Panahipour, the lawyer in the case, has tried by attending the sentence-enforcement office to delay implementation of the sentence—to buy time in the hope that the Supreme Court would acquit Sepideh in her second case so that the suspended prison sentence from her first case would not be activated. The Court eventually converted the prison sentence into a fine, but because the legal characterisation of the charge did not change, the suspended prison sentence is to be enforced. Yesterday the sentence-enforcement office called, and Sepideh must report to Evin Prison on Saturday, 27 July.

At the top of her social-media page Sepideh has written:
“Commitment to truth and personal responsibility is redemptive.”

She has lived this conviction. Today, truth for her means her innocence, and commitment to personal responsibility for us means protesting this injustice. This is the minimum that each of us can do not only for Sepideh but for the integrity of our society, its future and our children.

If we believe that something must change, and if we believe that the right of the women and girls of this country is not disrespect and violent treatment in streets, buses and the metro, Sepideh is a symbol through whom all of us can protest this process. Imprisoning her under a sentence that had previously been suspended sends society the message that this protest is not recognised. In such circumstances, society’s responsibility is to demand justice.

Silence, when through writing and sharing our protest we can demonstrate our dissatisfaction with such a sentence, is nothing other than consent to and acceptance of this unjust judgment and of the painful conditions prevailing in society.

I, Aydin Areta, as an Iranian, object to this sentence. Sepideh Rashno certainly does not belong in prison. Thoughtful young people such as Sepideh are assets of this country’s future, and their homeland is the honourable expanse of freedom whose realisation they are helping to pioneer.

Do not imprison Sepideh Rashno.