The Iranian state arrested journalist Jîna Mudarîs, who was sentenced to imprisonment for participating in ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadî’ (Woman, Life, Freedom) uprising.

Journalist Jîna Muderîs Gorcî stated the following on her social media account regarding her arrest: “Today I am going to Sine Women's Prison, where gender, class and national differences are tripled. When I was packing my stuff for prison, I first put hope in my bag so that I could go there with hope.”

In June, the Sine (Sanandaj) Revolutionary Court sentenced the Kurdish journalist and women's rights activist Jîna Muderîs Gorci to a total of 21 years in prison.

The Kurdish journalist's sentence was later reduced to 16 months.

Background

Jina Mahsa Amini was arrested by the morality police on 13 September 2022 on one of Tehran’s streets for wearing her hijab “inappropriately”.

Less than two hours after being taken to the Morality Police building on Vozara Street in Tehran, she was taken to Kasra Hospital in an unconscious state due to the severity of the blows to her head inflicted by the officers.

According to published reports, Amini was brain-dead when she was hospitalised. She died three days later, on 16 September, at Kasra Hospital in Tehran.

Although the Islamic Republic, as usual, announced Amini’s cause of death as “a heart attack caused by an underlying illness”, her family rejected this claim, insisting that their child was perfectly healthy before her arrest.

Several eyewitnesses among the detainees in the same van that took Amini to a detention centre, later confirmed that police officers used violence and beat the young woman severely, fracturing her skull.

Jina Amini’s death sparked an unprecedented rebellion in Iran and Eastern Kurdistan. This rebellion was called ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadî’. Iranian forces killed hundreds of people and arrested thousands during the uprising. Many were executed. Human rights groups say the Iranian government uses the death penalty to suppress public outcry.