2 months ago
10
Niloofar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi (Picture credit: Agencies)
DUBAI: An Iranian court cleared two jailed
journalists
of collaborating with the United States, and reduced their sentences over reports about a woman's death that had helped trigger
protests
in 2022,
Iran
's worst
domestic unrest
for decades.
Niloofar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi, sentenced a year ago to 13 and 12 years in prison respectively, had their terms reduced to five years, judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir told a news conference on Sunday.
"They were acquitted of the charge of collaboration with the US in the
appeal court
," Jahangir said.
The two journalists were jailed for their coverage of the death in custody of
Kurdish-Iranian
woman Mahsa Amini while she was being held by the
morality police
over accusations she breached Iran's Islamic dress code laws.
Her death sparked nationwide protests in late 2022 and 2023 that grew into Iran's biggest domestic unrest since the 1979 revolution that brought Iran's clerical rulers to power.
