General

Iranian authorities ignored serious mental health condition of defendant who set herself on fire outside courthouse

Center for Human Rights in Iran 11/09/2019
“My sister is bipolar and she has been under doctor’s supervision for the past two years,” an unidentified woman told the Rokna news website on September 4. “We had provided all the documents to the court but she was being prosecuted as a healthy person only because she cursed at the guards.”

The victim—who was being prosecuted for previously trying to enter a stadium in Tehran to watch a men’s soccer match—is currently hospitalized and fighting for her life with severe burns [she died on Sept.10, Tlaxcala’s Note].
Judicial authorities had chosen to prosecute the woman despite being able under Articles 80 and 81 of Iran’s Criminal Procedures Regulations to drop the charges due to her mental health condition.