Atena Farghadani is an Iranian artist and political activist, who was imprisoned for 18 months. Amnesty International considers her a prisoner of conscience. She was released on 3 May 2016.
Arrest and imprisonment
One of her cartoons, in which she criticized a draft law which would outlaw voluntary sterilisation and restrict access to measures of birth control, portrayed Iranian government officials as monkeys and goats. After publishing her artworks on Facebook, she was arrested in August 2014 and jailed for three months in Evin Prison in Tehran on charges of spreading propaganda, insulting members of parliament, and insulting the Supreme Leader of Iran. She was released in November. Farghadani sent letters of protest over her treatment to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, Hassan Rouhani, the president, and the head of the prison service, but did not receive a reply. She then posted a video online in which she explained to the public about her experience in Evin prison and that she was being strip-searched, beaten and verbally abused by guards. In January 2015, she was arrested again. Three weeks later, she went on a hunger strike to protest against conditions at the prison. She suffered a heart attack in late February 2015. On 1 June 2015, judge Abolghassem Salavati of the Tehran court found her guilty on these charges and sentenced her to 12 years and nine months in prison. It is believed that she was held in Gharchak prison. In June 2015, she smuggled out of prison a note in which she claimed she was subjected to a virginity test and a pregnancy test for shaking the hand of her lawyer, who had visited her in prison after her trial. The claim was later confirmed by prison authorities. In September 2015, Farghadani was charged with an "illegitimate sexual relationship short of adultery" and "indecent conduct" for shaking the hand of her lawyer Mohammad Moghimi; Moghimi was also charged. She was reported to have gone on a hunger strike in protest.
Charges
Sentenced 12 years and 9 months in June 2015, for drawing members of Iranian Parliament as animals to protest legislation against birth control, and posting the image to her personal Facebook
An Appeals Court reduced her sentence to 18 months for "propaganda against the state", she was acquitted of "assembly and collusion against national security" and a 3 year sentence for "insulting the supreme leader" was suspended for 4 years
She was fined 100,000 rials for "insulting the supreme leader, president, members of the Parliament, and the Ward 2-A agents" who interrogated her
During her imprisonment she was charged with illegitimate relations for shaking hands with her lawyer in front of prison guards on June 13, 2015. The charge was thrown out of the Criminal Court on October 3, 2015
