ABC blog

The aunt of Ma’edeh Sha’baninejhad, a teenage Arab cultural activist being prosecuted for poetry she published online, has spent five months in jail [1].

Mahnaz Amuri, a 36-year-old mother of an eight-year-old son, was arrested in a January 25, 2017 raid in a house in Ahwaz and charged with sheltering her niece Ma’edeh as she fled from authorities. After fifteen days in the custody of the Revolutionary Guards Intelligence Office, she was transferred to Sepidar Prison and a 200 million toman (c. 47,000 USD) bail was set. The family readied the bail amount and took it to the Revolutionary Court Investigative Judge, who did not grant her release. Amuri has spent some five months in Sepidar with her case pending. Incarceration has caused her great hardship and she suffers from psychological symptoms. Her legal fate remains uncertain.

Ma’edeh Sha’baninejhad, a promising high school student from Abadan, has been charged with “propaganda against the government on social media” for publishing her Arabic-language poetry online. After being freed on bail following an initial October 2017 arrest, Ma’edeh was again summoned for questioning by a Revolutionary Court in Abadan. Ma’edeh fled to her relatives’ house in Ahwaz, where she and her aunt were arrested alongside other family members on January 25, 2018. As of June 12, 2018, she is again free on bail.

[1] Activist Karim Dahimi