Aug. 18 – A 17-year-old girl was beaten and interrogated by Iranian officials for more than two hours and was left with multiple injuries, according to human rights group, Hengaw.
Sonia Sharifi shared a picture on social media of a head wound she had sustained. Hengaw said the young woman was abducted, tortured and then dropped off in a street.
Sharifi became a symbol of defiance in Iran, after a photo of her standing on a car with her hands in the air making victory signs during anti-government protests went viral.
Concerns over increased violence towards the Bahai’s, a religious minority group in Iran, were raised by representatives of the community.
Almost 60 Bahai’s have been detained or imprisoned in recent weeks, while 180 are believed to have been subjected to torture.
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s constitution does not currently recognize the Baha’i faith.
And Iranian film director Saeed Roustayi was given a six month suspended sentence for showing his film Leila’s Brothers at the Cannes Film Festival after allegedly failing to get authorization from the government.
Roustayi and the film’s producer Javad Noruzbegi were found guilty of “contributing to propaganda of the opposition against the Islamic system,” and will serve 9 days in prison, with a ban on filmmaking during the full 6-month sentence.
The film follows a family in Iran, as they try to survive the country’s economic crisis, aggravated by corruption and international sanctions.
