The daughter of former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been charged with “propaganda activity against the system of the Islamic Republic of Iran and blasphemy,” Iran’s judiciary announced on July 3.
An indictment for the arrest of Faezeh Hashemi, a 59-year-old former lawmaker and rights activist, has been issued, but it was not reported whether she had been taken into custody.
The charges reportedly stem from comments Hashemi made during a social-media forum in April. She was reported to have said that Iran’s insistence that the United States remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps from its list of terrorist organizations was “damaging” to Iran’s national interests.
Tehran’s demand has become a key obstacle to restoring the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.
Hashemi reportedly also called the wife of the Prophet Mohammed a “businesswoman” whose money the prophet spent. She later called the comments a “joke…without any intention of causing insult.”
In 2012, Hashemi served six months in jail on charges of propaganda against Iran.
Rafsanjani served as president of Iran from 1989 to 1997. He was considered a pragmatic conservative who sought to avoid conflict with the United States and the West. He died in 2017.
