The Arab Democrat The Latest From The Arab World
Related Articles
The Iranian judiciary on Tuesday said that Iranian-British woman Ghoncheh Ghavami, who was arrested in June after trying to see a men’s volleyball game, is currently being held for security reasons and over “links with foreigners”.
The 25-year-old law graduate’s lawyer had earlier in the month said she was given a one-year-jail sentence at the start of November, but the Iranian judiciary on Monday denied that any verdict was reached.
Ghavami was arrested for having “acted against the security of the country and for links with foreigners”, Hadi Sadeghi, the deputy chief of the Iranian judiciary’s cultural affairs department, said. He also denied her lawyer’s statement that Ghavami was detained because she was near the volleyball stadium in Tehran.
Sadeghi explained the almost five months she had to spend in detention, saying that Iranian judges can extend a provisional detention order for additional investigation of charges.
Ghavami was arrested on June 20th at Azadi Stadium, where the Iranian men’s volleyball team was about to play Italy; before the game, women journalists and female fans were told that they could not attend the match, leading to a short demonstration. She was released a few hours later, but war rearrested within days at a police station she went to reclaim her affects confiscated at the volleyball stadium.
According to the Iranian volleyball federation, the sport’s governing body FIVB informed it that it won’t be able to host 2015’s under-19 world championships as planned. Additionally, the FIVB on Tuesday announced that the tournament will instead be hosted by Argentina. Mohammad Reza Davarzani, the president of Iran’s volleyball federation, said that Ghavami’s case was not at all related to the sport of volleyball and “to make a connection between a non-sporting activity and our sport is unfair”.
