Five members of the Iranian Baha'i community living in Mashhad have been summoned to Vakilabad Prison to begin serving their sentences.
According to an informed source who spoke to IranWire, that the names of the five are Naghmeh Zabihian, Nakisa Hajipour, Nika Pakzadan, Farzaneh Daneshgari and Sanaz Eshaghi.
Each has been issued with a one-year sentence on charges of “propaganda against the regime through propagation of the Baha’i faith”. The sentences were handed down in Branch Three of the Revolutionary Court of Mashhad, presided over by Judge Baghdehi, who has a track record of issuing custodial sentences to Iranian Baha’is for no reason other than their faith.
The summonses were issued on January 28 and each of the five women has reportedly been given 10 days to turn themselves in to the Prisons Organization.
It comes at the same time as a severe outbreak of coronavirus at Vakilabad Prison, and also amid a recent fresh wave of crackdowns on Baha’is and members of other ethnic and religious minorities in Iran.
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