Niloufar Hamedi, 30, and Elaheh Mohammadi, 36, have been appearing since the end of May 2023 before a revolutionary court in Tehran for “having undermined national security”. They recall that they only did their job as journalists. They face the death penalty.
Their names are Niloufar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi and for the past month they have been locked up in a revolutionary court in Tehran, Iran, on trial for reporting last September the story of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old student beaten to death by the morality police because her hair was sticking out of her veil. The trial is behind closed doors, even their family members are not allowed to attend the hearings. All that is known is that they denied what they were accused of, that is to say the accusation of having wanted to undermine national security by inciting revolt.
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On the stand, they explained from the first day of the hearing that they simply did their job. And we understand how much this trial is in fact the trial of journalism, the trial of the freedom to investigate, to question, to shed light on the manipulations of power. The first of the two to be interested in the story of Mahsa Amini is Niloufar Hamedi, 30, reporter for the newspaper Sharghshe specialized in everything related to women’s rights in her country, and in mid-September, an Instagram post that was sent to her caught her attention.
It was about a young woman, severely injured after being beaten by the vice squad for a strand of hair coming out of her veil. Niloufar Amedi therefore cross-checked the information: she found the hospital, went there, met the family as well as witnesses of the scene, she published the photos on Twitter. It was September 16, 2022. The same day, Mahsa Amini succumbed to her injuries. A week later, the other journalist currently on trial, Elaheh Mohammadi, covers the student’s funeral.
They face the death penalty
Quickly, Iran is on fire. Demonstrations to the cries of “women, life, freedom” multiply in the country, the repression is immediate, the arrests too and after a few days, the two journalists, accused of having lit the fuse of the dispute, are arrested, imprisoned, isolated. During the uprising, 95 other journalists will also be arrested.
Today, both receive support from all over the world, the magazine Time named them the most influential people of the year, more than 500 journalists in Iran also signed a petition calling for their release. They risk the death penalty, but according to their relatives they do not lose hope, quite the contrary. From his cell in prison, Niloufar Hamedi told her husband: “Whatever happens, everywhere, life finds its way, always. Even here and despite everything“.