Iranian Twin Sisters Sentenced to Death and 25 Years in Prison Over Protests
Iranian twin sisters Taraneh and Romina Rahimi have been sentenced to death and 25 years in prison respectively following their arrest during anti-regime protests, amid reports of severe abuse.
The British newspaper The Guardian has published details on the brutal suppression of protests in Iran. Twin sisters Taraneh and Romina Rahimi, who were arrested by Iranian authorities, underwent severe abuse, with one sentenced to death and the other to 25 years behind bars.
Nighttime Abduction and Months of Silence
The twins were 19 years old and still in high school when they were taken from their beds in the middle of the night by masked men, later identified as members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
After four months of desperate searching through hospitals and state institutions, their mother, Marzieh Nourmohammadi, finally learned of their fate. Taraneh and Romina Rahimi had been seized for joining millions on the streets of Iranian cities during the anti-regime protests in January. The twins were reportedly unrecognizable when their mother was allowed to visit them in prison in May.
According to their cousin living in the United States, the young women's scalps were torn from being dragged by their hair, and their faces were heavily bruised. It was alleged that Taraneh, who dreamed of running her own horse stables, was told by guards that they would rape Romina in front of her unless she signed a confession.
Discrepancy in Sentencing and Lack of Due Process
The mother's visit took place five months ago at the Dolatabad prison in Isfahan, central Iran. It has now emerged from the Iranian courts that Taraneh was sentenced to death for her participation in the January protests, while Romina was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Neither of the women has been seen by their family since the sentencing.
The reason for the vast difference in their sentences remains a mystery. Their cousin, Masoud Nourmohammadi, who resides in Utah, USA, expressed his struggle to comprehend the regime's actions:
"They don't follow their own law. There is an 18-day window for lawyers to appeal, but in many recent execution cases, that didn't happen. They just sentence, take the kids, execute them, and hang them. So I mean, nothing, nothing really makes sense."
Nourmohammadi, 43, believes Taraneh was sentenced to death by hanging precisely because of her clear innocence:
"You can look at her eyes and you know right away she is a kind person. My feeling is they want to put fear in people, to say: 'Look, no matter how good you are, no matter how innocent you are, we can grab you, so don't go out on the streets anymore.'"
