VOA News on Iran

Jailed Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi faces a new trial over accusations she made against security forces of sexually assaulting female prisoners, her family said Saturday.

The trial, due to begin Sunday, relates to an audio message she shared from prison in April with supporters in which she decried a "full-scale war against women" in the Islamic Republic.

She is charged in this latest case with making "propaganda against the regime," the family said.

There has been no comment on the case by Iranian judicial authorities.

Her family quoted Mohammadi as saying that the trial should be held in public so "witnesses and survivors can testify to the sexual assaults perpetrated by the Islamic Republic regime against women."

Mohammadi, who is held in Tehran's Evin prison, urged Iranian women in her April message via her Instagram page to share their stories of arrest and sexual assault at the hands of the authorities.

She pointed to the case of journalist and student Dina Ghalibaf, who, according to rights groups, was arrested after accusing security forces on social media of handcuffing and sexually assaulting her during a previous arrest at a metro station. Ghalibaf was later released.

The authorities in Iran have in recent weeks intensified a crackdown obliging women to obey the country's Islamic dress code, notably making use of video surveillance.

Mohammadi has been incarcerated since November 2021 and has not seen her Paris-based husband and twin children for several years.

She said the trial that opens Sunday will be the fourth such case against her.

Mohammadi is already serving sentences based on several convictions issued in recent years, which her family says punish her for rights campaigning.

According to her family, her sentences now amount to 12 years and three months of imprisonment, 154 lashes, two years of exile and various social and political restrictions.

Mohammadi has long been a staunch opponent of the obligation for women in Iran to wear the headscarf and has continued her campaign even in prison, refusing to wear the hijab in front of male officials.

Film director Mohammad Rasoulof made an "exhausting and extremely dangerous" walk across a mountainous borderland to avoid being jailed in Iran on national security charges, he told The Guardian newspaper.

Rasoulof said Monday he had fled Iran after a court sentenced him to eight years in jail, of which five were due to be served, over his new film "The Seed of the Sacred Fig."

The leading Iranian filmmaker, often a target of the country's authorities, told The Guardian in an interview published Friday that he had found shelter in Germany and was hopeful he could attend the film's Cannes premiere next week.

The film tells the story of a judge's struggles amid political unrest in Tehran.

Rasoulof told the U.K. newspaper that he had "no choice" but to leave, although he expects to return home "quite soon."

"My mission is to be able to convey the narratives of what is going on in Iran and the situation in which we are stuck as Iranians," said Rasoulof.

"This is something that I cannot do in prison.

"I have in mind the idea that I'll be back quite soon, but I think that's the case of all the Iranians who have left the country," he said.

Rasoulof has already served two terms in Iranian jails over previous films and had his passport withdrawn in 2017.

Having decided to leave, Rasoulof told the newspaper he cut all communications via mobile phones and computers and made his way by foot on a secret route to a border crossing.

"It was a several-hour long, exhausting and extremely dangerous walk that I had to do with a guide," he said.

After staying in a safe house, he contacted German authorities who provided him with papers that enabled him to travel to Europe.