Tehran, January 20: Iran has sentenced a leading student activist to more than eight years in jail on security charges and insulting the Islamic republic leadership, opposition websites reported today.
Majid Tavakoli was arrested on December 7 during anti-government protests on campuses on the annual Student Day.
State news agency IRNA said Tavakoli had sought to leave Tehran’s Amir Kabir university “disguised as a woman,” unleashing a cyber campaign by male opposition supporters wearing Islamic headscarves in solidarity and calling for his release.
He has been sentenced to “five years in prison for conspiring and gathering against the establishment and one year for propaganda against the system,” Amir Kabir News Letter, an opposition student website, said.
It added that Tavakoli was also handed a two-year jail term for insulting the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and another six months for insulting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
–Agencies