Farzaneh Zilabi

Age: 47
Activism/rights: Human rights lawyer
Status: Released on bail
Judicial status: Awaiting appeals
Violations: Arbitrary arrest and detention; judicial harassment; lack of a fair trial and due process

Farzaneh Zilabi is a lawyer and a member of the Khuzestan Bar Association. She has represented a number of individuals detained during the 2022 protests, Haft Tappeh sugarcane workers and workers of the National Steel Group of Ahvaz, labour activists, retirees, journalists, and teachers, primarily in Khuzestan Province. She has also worked to pursue labour-related demands and to secure the release of detained workers. She has repeatedly been summoned and threatened by security authorities. In 2019, Farzaneh reported the physical and psychological torture and threats inflicted on Esmail Bakhshi, a protesting Haft Tappeh worker, while held in a security detention centre, and criticised the lack of independence of the judiciary and judges, as well as the interference of security forces in judicial proceedings against protesters.⁷⁸ Following these disclosures, the prosecutor and the Judiciary’s Intelligence Protection Unit in Shush opened a new case against her on the charge of “spreading false information”. Although Branch 4 of the Prosecutor’s Office later declared the case closed, Branch 112 of the Ahvaz  Criminal Court of Ahvaz subsequently sentenced Farzaneh to three months’ imprisonment. On 24 July 2019, while only one week remained before the court hearing of the Haft Tappeh workers, Farzaneh was summoned to the Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office of Ahvaz County.

The charges raised against her at the prosecutor’s office included “assembly and collusion against national security”, “propaganda against the system”, “insulting the leadership”, “membership of opposition groups”, and “spreading false information”.⁸⁰ After the President of the Supreme Audit Court announced in April 2021 that, “with the support of the judiciary”, the Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Company had been returned to public ownership and nationalised, security authorities repeatedly threatened her in an effort to force her to withdraw from the Haft Tappeh case. On 14 September 2021, Branch Two of the Ahvaz Revolutionary Court sentenced her to one year’s imprisonment and a two-year travel ban on the charge of “propaganda against the system”, while acquitting her of the other charges. Following the execution of the first protester of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising in December 2022, Farzaneh together with several Iranian human rights activists, signed a letter addressed to António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, calling for a response to the executions in Iran. Two months later, Branch 13 of the Ahvaz Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office summoned her on charges of “insulting the leadership”, “spreading false information online to disturb public opinion”, “propaganda against the system”, “assembly and collusion against national security”, and “membership of opposition groups”. On 21 May 2023, Branch 4 of the Ahvaz Revolutionary Court sentenced Farzaneh to one year and six months’ imprisonment on charges of “propaganda against the system” and “insulting the leadership”.

Farzaneh Zilabi is currently released on bail, and all three of her cases are under review before the Khuzestan Province Court of Appeal.