Sentences reduced for Iranian journalists involved in Amini death coverage

Iranian courts have reduced jail terms for two female journalists charged with collaborating with the United States, their lawyers told reformist newspapers on Sunday.

Elaheh Mohammadi, 37, and Niloufar Hamedi, 31, are out on bail after more than a year in Tehran's Evin prison for their coverage of the September 2022 death in custody of Mahsa Amini which had sparked nationwide protests.

In January, Iran's judiciary said it had launched new proceedings against the two women for posing for pictures without the mandatory headscarf upon their release that month.

Two separate appeals courts in Tehran ruled to acquit the women of the charge of collaboration with the United States, the lawyers were quoted as saying by Shargh and Ham Mihan dailies.

Originally, Mohammadi had been sentenced to six years in jail while Hamedi had been handed a seven-year sentence, according to the judiciary.

The pair were also each given five-year sentences for collusion and conspiring against state security and one year for propaganda against the Islamic republic.

The lawyers said these sentences were upheld by the appeals court and would be served concurrently, adding, however, that they hope the journalists would be freed under an amnesty announced last year by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"Considering that the remaining two accusations meet the full conditions of the amnesty directive of 2023, we hope that Elaheh Mohammadi will be pardoned, and this case will be closed by issuing a suspension of execution order," Mohammadi's lawyer Shahab Mirlohi told Ham Mihan newspaper.

Hamedi's lawyers issued a similar statement.

Hamedi, a photographer for Shargh, was arrested less than a week after Amini's death after posting a picture of the young woman's grieving family on social media.

Ham Mihan reporter Mohammadi was arrested after going to Amini's hometown of Saqez, in the western Iranian province of Kurdistan, to cover her funeral which turned into a demonstration.

Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, had been arrested for an alleged breach of strict dress rules for women, in place since shortly after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

Following her death, months-long protests shook Iran, with hundreds of people, including dozens of security personnel, killed in the unrest, and thousands of demonstrators arrested.

Nine men were executed in cases related to the protests which Iranian authorities generally labelled "foreign-instigated riots".