Faezeh Hashemi, the daughter of former Iranian President Akbar Hasemi Rafsanjani, has been sentenced to five years in prison by a court in Tehran and faces further charges for her activism and comments slamming authorities for their brutal crackdown on protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini.
Hashemi's lawyer, Neda Shams, wrote on Twitter on January 9 that "the verdict is not final."
"My client is still in prison and there are other cases against her," she added.
Shams did not give any details on the charges Hashemi was sentenced for, nor on the cases still outstanding against her.
Hashemi, a former lawmaker and women’s rights advocate whose father was one of the founding fathers of the clerical establishment, was arrested in September and the hard-line Tasnim news agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), reported on September 27 that she was arrested by security forces in east Tehran for “inciting riots.”
Before her arrest, Hashemi had said that authorities were referring to the protests over Amini's death while in police custody for an alleged violation of the country's hijab law as “riots” and “sedition” in order to suppress them.
She also said the demands raised in the protests -- for more freedoms and rights -- are different from recent demonstrations that have focused on the deteriorating economy, which has been crushed by crippling U.S. sanctions.
Since then, the protests have continued nationwide in what some analysts say is the biggest threat to the Islamic government since the 1979 revolution.
The authorities have responded to the protests with a brutal crackdown that human rights groups say has left almost 500 dead and hundreds more injured.
Thousands more have been arrested, including many protesters, as well as journalists, lawyers, activists, and others, amid concerns about the charges against them.
Hashemi has been highly critical of the government in the past, including on the popular app Clubhouse where her appearances have attracted thousands of listeners. During the 2020 presidential vote, which brought hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi to power, she was among those calling for a boycott.
Hashemi has been arrested and jailed several times in the past, including briefly in the 2009 crackdown on mass protests over the disputed presidential vote in which widescale corruption was alleged by the opposition.
In 2012, she was given a six-month jail term for "spreading propaganda against the system.”