Six years in prison for Iranian student activist

Detained student activist, Arsalan Abadi was sentenced to six years in prison by an Iranian appellate court.

Daneshjoo News reports that the Qazvin University student who was arrested last December in the Ashura Day protests to the alleged fraud in the presidential elections had been sentenced to nine years in prison in the preliminary court.

Security forces had earlier arrested Abadi’s sister and fiancé and held them in detention for 30 days.

Many people were arrested and sentenced to heavy prison terms in the course of protests to the alleged electoral fraud that brought back Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to another term at the presidency.

The student movement and student groups have been a repeated target of government crackdown in its efforts to quell the election protests.

In recent reports, Nasim Sarabandi, student and women’s rights activist, was summoned by the revolutionary court for “a series fo explanations.”

Sarabandi, who was arrested earlier along with 17 other executive members of the student organization Consolidation Bureau last year, has been repeatedly threatened by the security forces in the past months.

Internet news sites have also reported that Azam Visme, journalist for the minority MP faction of the Parliament was released yesterday on a $70,000 bail. Visme was arrested over a month ago and had been kept in solitary confinement throughout her detention.