According to information received by HANA Human Rights Organization, Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Afshari, has sentenced Afshin Heyratian, a children’s rights activist working with child laborers and a Kurdish citizen from Kermanshah, to a combined 31 years in ta’zir imprisonment and a fine. Under the rules governing multiple offenses, only the harshest sentence, twelve years in prison, will actually be enforced.
Under the ruling, Heyratian was sentenced to twelve years on a charge of “forming an illegal group,” eleven years on a charge of “propaganda activity offensive to sharia and Islamic sanctities,” and six years plus a fine of 330 million tomans on a charge of “assembly and collusion against national security.” The court also imposed two years in prison and a fine of double the amount in question, on a charge of “obtaining illegitimate funds,” based on an allegation that he had received one thousand dollars.
Heyratian, a member of the Society for Protecting the Rights of Children and a resident of Tehran, has been held in Ward 7 of Evin Prison for more than eight months. The verdict was recently communicated to him in prison and can be appealed within twenty days, meaning it is not yet final.
The severity of the sentences, the sheer number of national security charges stacked together, and the case’s roots in civil activism and advocacy for child laborers raise serious concern over whether the principles of legality, narrow interpretation of criminal statutes, proportionality, and fair trial guarantees have been respected here. Attaching vague, broadly defined security charges to peaceful civic work risks placing unjustified limits on freedom of expression, freedom of association, and the right to take part in public life.
HANA Human Rights Organization stresses the need for an independent and fair review on appeal, full access for the defendant to his lawyer and case file, and a rigorous determination of the legal and factual elements underlying each charge. Any criminal conviction must rest on clear, verifiable evidence tied to specific conduct, not on civil activism, personal beliefs, or cooperation with child protection organizations.