(AP) — TEHRAN — Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported Sunday that a court has handed down prison sentences for 13 protesters arrested during the August 2017 demonstrations over economic hardships.
The report said that Tehran’s Revolutionary Court sentenced eight of the defendants to six months and the others to one year in prison, for “acting against national security by attending illegal gatherings.”
IRNA’s report said that five of the protesters are women.
In December, Iran sentenced two human rights lawyers to six years in prison and a third to 13 years.
The Arman daily said the attorneys were prosecuted for taking part in an “illegal gathering” and for “propaganda” against the ruling system.
In August, a 21-year-old student in Iran was sentenced to seven years in prison for taking part in university protests.
Parisa Rafei, an arts student at the University of Tehran, was convicted of “assembly with the intention of acting against national security, propaganda against the system and disrupting public order,” according to the reformist newspaper, Shargh.
Forty-five of her fellow students are also behind bars for their part in much broader unrest that swept the country later in December, according to an article in the reformist Etemad newspaper.
Iran is in the grip of an economic crisis and has seen sporadic protests in recent months as officials try to downplay the effects of the restored US sanctions on Tehran.