In Rojhilat, a Kurdish teacher has once again been given a long prison sentence. A revolutionary court in Sine (Sanandaj) sentenced Soma Pourmohammadi to ten years in prison for alleged offences against national security, the Kurdpa news agency reported on Sunday. The specific charge against the woman is "forming a group with the aim of disrupting national security". She was also sentenced to two years in exile, which she is to serve in a prison in Kirmaşan (Kermanshah). An appeal can still be lodged against the judgement, according to the report.

Soma Pourmohammadi is a member of the board of the socio-cultural organisation Nojîn (also Nozhin), which is based in Sine. The organisation offers lessons in Kurdish literature and language and promotes other civil society and educational initiatives, especially in remote regions without schools. In this way, even disadvantaged children receive basic education that will help them on their future path in life. However, this commitment is a thorn in the side of the Iranian regime, which has systematically discriminated against Kurds for decades.

Before Pourmohammadi, other volunteer educators from Nojîn had been sentenced to long prison terms, including Zara Mohammadi, her husband Seyvan Ebrahimi and Idris Manbari. The latter also received ten years in prison and 40 lashes because, according to the regime's judiciary, he endangered the state by teaching the Kurdish language. According to earlier reports by the Kurdpa agency, at least seven language teachers from Nojîn were sentenced last year, some of them to long prison terms. In some cases, the sentences were also justified on the grounds of attending the funeral of Jina Mahsa Amini, whose violent death in the custody of the morality police in autumn 2022 sparked the "Jin Jiyan Azadî" (Woman, Life, Freedom) revolt.