Iran Jails Former
Vice President
An
Appeals Court in Iran has sentenced a former Iranian vice
president and prominent reform activist, Hossein Marashi, to a
one-year prison term.
He was convicted of spreading propaganda against the ruling
clerical establishment.
The court upheld Marashi's conviction and sentence, one of many
court rulings against activists and opposition figures rounded
up in the turmoil triggered by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's
disputed re-election in June.
Marashi was taken into custody on Thursday by Security forces
while he was walking in a park near his home.
He was charged due to an interview he gave to a news Web site
last year encouraging people to gather in front of Tehran's Evin
prison to protest the detention of political activists.
Fifty-one-year-old Marashi, is a relative of former President
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a vehement critic of Ahmadinejad who
leads the influential Assembly of Experts, the only group with
the authority to dismiss Iran's supreme leader.
The prosecutions have dealt a major blow to a protest movement
that was already hard to sustain with security forces delivering
a punishing response at each attempt to rally support on the
streets.
Earlier this week, opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who
was Ahmadinejad's main challenger in the election, urged the
movement to press on in the next Iranian year, which begins on
March 21.
The court ruling includes a lifelong ban on political activity
for Marashi.
AP/Williams/Yinka
