Iran has sentenced in absentia award-winning women's rights activist Shadi Sadr and another fellow activist to jail and lashes over a protest in 2007, their lawyer told ILNA news agency on Sunday. Former MP Mohsen Armin, who is a senior member of a reformist party which backs opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, was also arrested in Tehran on Sunday, his daughter told a reformist website.
The revolutionary court "has sentenced Shadi Sadr, 35, to six years in jail and 74 lashes for acting against national security and harming public order," lawyer Mohammad Mostafai said.
The other activist, Mahbubeh Abbas-Gholizadeh, was also handed a term of two-and-a-half years in jail and 30 lashes for similar charges, he said, adding that he has 20 days to appeal the "heavy sentences." The court had tried the pair, both currently abroad, on May 8 over a rally in March 2007 outside a revolutionary court where four fellow feminists were on trial. Iranian authorities arrested them along with 30 other protesters.