Sepideh Farhan

Sepideh Farhan (Sepideh Farah-Abadi) is a graduate of graphics design. She was arrested for participating in the country-wide uprising in January 2017. In addition, she was sentenced to prison for human rights activism. Ms. Farhan is one of the prisoners who has talked about experiencing sexual assault during her interrogations.

• <coverage-outsourcing id='20608'> Sepideh Farhan and Maryam Faraji were arrested without a warrant by the Information Ministry agents in Tehran’s Inqilab Sq. Years later Ms. Farhan explained to IPA that she and Maryam Faraji were arrested for merely objecting to the arrest and beating of their friend. She said martial law was declared on the night they were arrested and therefore there was no assembly in that location. A few hours after their arrest, they were transferred to an Information Ministry office. According to Ms. Farhan, she was sexually harassed verbally by the security agents in that place. The agents had left her phone ON, and whenever she would receive a call, a female agent would cover Ms. Farhan’s mouth and the interrogator would respond in her place. The agent would claim to be a friend of Ms. Farhan and say: “Sepideh is busy right now; she’ll call you later.” </coverage-outsourcing>
• <coverage-outsourcing id='39927'> Sepideh Farhan and Maryam Faraji were transferred to the solitary confinements in ward 209 of Evin Prison. Years later Ms. Farhan told IPA that on the same day they were informed of their charges without instances of the crimes by Investigator Shah-Mohammadi who ran the seventh branch of Evin prosecutor’s office. She told IPA that during her temporary detention, her family and friends did not know her whereabouts and situation for the first four days and her first visit from family was after a month. </coverage-outsourcing>
• <coverage-outsourcing id='39965'> Around this time Farhan’s parents were interrogated at an Information Ministry office. She told IPA later that the interrogators were asking her parents for several hours about the people who contacted them to ask about their daughter, and the identity her friends. </coverage-outsourcing>
• <coverage-outsourcing id='20643'> <reference source='https://www.zeitoons.com/44448'> In an interview with domestic media, one of the members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Iran’s parliament) denied the existence of any female prisoner in relation to the January 2017 uprising. According to Zeitoon news, during her visit to Evin Prison, MP Fatemeh Saidi said there were no women among the currently incarcerated; Hower, according to Sepideh Farhan, Ms. Saidi had talked to her in ward 209 about her case. Years later Ms. Farhan told IPA that one day after MP Saidi’s comments, she found out about them and was horrified. Due to the suspicious death of Sina Ghanbari in Evin Prison, she assumed the reason the MP denied their meeting was because she is going to suffer the same fate. </reference> </coverage-outsourcing>
• <coverage-outsourcing id='39946'> The infirmary at ward 209 prescribed seven types of medicine for her that made her hallucinate and confused. She explained years later that she was transferred to the infirmary for her bad mental state and received some medicine, but a few days later while listening to the infirmary staff she realized that some of her drugs are used for quitting narcotics. After a while, the doctor at the infirmary suddenly cut off her medicine. She said: “I believe these pills were prescribed for psychological torture or to help the interrogator dominate and control my behavior. When the drugs were suddenly cut off, it made me more suspicious about them. </coverage-outsourcing>
• <coverage-outsourcing id='20948'> Sepideh Farhan told IPA that she was released on bail after being held in solitary confinement for 21 days. She was sexually harassed repeatedly by the interrogators: “One interrogator would say you seem to like me, do you? He would ask me to describe my sexual relationships and address me with profanities.” According to Ms. Farhan, the mental and sexual harassments were constant. Most prisoners tend not to discuss those experiences in public. </coverage-outsourcing>
• <coverage-outsourcing id='39928'> The 26th branch of the revolutionary court of Tehran presided by Judge Ahmadzadeh sentenced Speideh Farhan in absentia to accumulatively six years in prison and 74 lashes. She was sentenced to five years in prison for acts against national security and one year and 74 lashes for disrupting public order. After applying article 134 of IPC, she will have to spend five years in prison. The court convicted her based on the reports from the Ministry of Information about her previous activities, messages sent from her cellphone, and the data saved on her phone. Years later she told IPA that she was not at the gathering when she got arrested, but the Ministry of Information checked her messages and figured out that she had participated in the protests on previous days. She said Judge Ahmadzadeh did not allow her to introduce an attorney to the court; in protest of this violation, Ms. Farhan refused to attend the trial. In order to speed up the process, she did not lodge a protest but she did object to the preliminary verdict. </coverage-outsourcing>
• <coverage-outsourcing id='25907'> The 36th branch of the revolutionary court of Tehran presided by Judge Zargar reduced her prison sentence. According to Ms. Farhan in her interview with IPA, the appeal court initially told notified her that it has confirmed the decision of preliminary court verbatim. However, after several months of inquiry, the court told her that the verdict was amended. In the end, her sentence was reduced to 2.5 years in prison for assembly and collusion with intent to act against national security; she was cleared of the charge of disrupting public order. </coverage-outsourcing>
• <coverage-outsourcing id='28213'> <reference source=''> went to prison to execute the sentence. </reference> </coverage-outsourcing>
• <coverage-outsourcing id='39961'> According to IPA sources, Ms. Farhan was suffering from tendinitis and despite the doctor’s order for bed rest, she was kept under improper conditions. She later told IPA that the cleaning duty in prison and lifting herself up to her bunkbed every day slowed down her recovery. </coverage-outsourcing>
• <coverage-outsourcing id='29893'> She came on leave after Coronavirus outbreaks in Iran's several prisons. </coverage-outsourcing>
• <coverage-outsourcing id='32442'> <reference source='https://www.hra-news.org/2020/hranews/a-25517/'> According to HRANA, 35 political women prisoners are currently being kept in the women's Evin Prison ward. They face problems such as limited access to medical services, rarity and high prices of goods, low-quality food, etc. After the coronavirus's pandemic, prisoners are responsible for preparing masks and gloves. In the prison store, each mask or pair of gloves is sold to prisoners at a price of between eight and ten thousand tomans. Detergents and disinfectants are also given to the prisoners rationally. Still, the prisoners have to buy these materials from the store due to the lack of these items. The prison store sells Alcohol and other disinfectants at high prices, so some prisoners buy these substances together. The quality of food is low, and most prisoners are forced to buy food from the prison store. Maryam Akbari Monfared, Atena Daemi, Raheleh Ahmadi, Saba Kord Afshari, Niloufar Bayani, Sepideh Kashani, Fatemeh Mosanna, Zahra Zahtabachi, Monireh Arabshahi, Yasaman Ariani, Mojgan Keshavarz, Aras Amiri, Samaneh Norouz Moradi, Nasrin Sotoudeh, Hengameh Shahidi, Rezvaneh Ahmad Khanbeigi, Sepideh Farhan, Sepideh Gholyan, Maryam Ebrahimvand, Neda Ashtiani, Zahra Jamali, Fariba Adelkhah, Mozhgan Kavousi, Mozhdeh Negahdar, Elham Barmaki, Masoumeh (Minoo) Ghasemzadeh Malek Shah, Maryam Haji Hosseini, Nazanin Toosi, Mina Saki, Mira Radpour, Leila Raouf, Hajar Siamifar, and Soroush Ahmadi Khosravi are among the 35 women prisoners currently being kept in the women's ward of Evin Prison. </reference> </coverage-outsourcing>
• <coverage-outsourcing id='33757'> <reference source=''> Sepideh Farhan was transferred to Qarchak Prison. Ms. Farhan told IPA years later that she was previously summoned to ward 209 but she refused to go. She believes her response to the Ministry of Information led to her exile to Qarchak. </reference> </coverage-outsourcing>
• <coverage-outsourcing id='39963'> Around 20 male and female agents stormed ward 8 of Qarchak prison and battered and wounded the political prisoners. The attack was planned for the transfer of Golrokh Iraee to ward 2-Alef of Evin Prison. She was ultimately transferred violently. Sepideh Farhan later described the details of the event for IPA. According to Ms. Farhan, all of the political prisoners were wounded by the prison guards and the scars on their bodies were visible for a long time. Javad Fa’legari, commander of the prison guards; Sepideh Khoshraftar and Samira Hosseini, two female prison guards, were among the attackers who battered and wounded the prisoners. </coverage-outsourcing>
• <coverage-outsourcing id='36209'> <reference source=''> Sepideh Farhan got early release. </reference> </coverage-outsourcing>