ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Sharifeh Mohammadi, an Iranian labor activist previously sentenced to death over alleged ties to Kurdish opposition parties, has had her sentence commuted to 30 years in prison, her lawyer said on Wednesday. 

Mohammadi was handed a death sentence in July 2024 for allegedly participating in armed rebellion, known as “Baghi.” She was accused of membership in a group linked to the Komala Party, an exiled Kurdish group designated a terrorist organization by Tehran.

“By the decision of the Honorable Head of the Judiciary, the death sentence of Ms. Sharifeh Mohammadi was commuted to a first-degree prison sentence (thirty years),” Amir Raesian Mohammadi’s Lawyer said in a post on X on Wednesday. 

Raesian added that the immediate risk of execution has been averted, but efforts continue to overturn Mohammadi’s conviction and secure her acquittal on the charge of rebellion.

Iran has frequently arrested individuals and charged them with armed rebellion, or “Baghi”, and “rebellion against God,” often targeting those allegedly linked to major Iranian Kurdish opposition groups, including the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), Komala, the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK), and the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK).

Iran’s use of the death penalty has drawn widespread international condemnation.

In March, over a dozen international rights organizations and advocacy groups sent a joint letter to the United Nations, the European Parliament, and the German Federal Government, urging them to intervene and save Mohammadi as well as two other Kurdish women on death row - Pakhshan Azizi and Varisheh Moradi —from execution.

The three activists are only some of the women who have been sentenced to death by Iranian authorities in recent months. Their lawyers have repeatedly stated that the sentences are unjust.

The women's movement has always been an active movement in Iran’s Kurdish areas and has constantly faced repression. Dozens of women activists were arrested in Sanandaj in 2022 for their role in organizing the protests following the death of Zhina (Mahsa) Amini.

Activists in Iran decry the lack of a law to protect women against violence and oppression by the society, their families, and even by government institutions.