Former Tehran mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi has been sentenced to a year in prison for criticizing Iran’s intervention in the Syrian civil war, according to the Mizan Online agency agency.
During a 2017 rally in support of President Hassan Rouhani, Gholamhossein Karbaschi, who was mayor of the country’s capital between 1990-1998, said: “Should we be proud of this religious fervor in the name of defending things like…the holy shrines [of Shia followers in Syria]?”
He continued, “We also want to see peace in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. We want to defend the oppressed and strengthen the Shia populations there. But can we achieve that just by giving money and weapons and killing and pounding?”, according to a translation by the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).
Karbaschi was tried at the Islamic Revolutionary Tribunal of Isfahan for “propaganda against the system.”
Go Deeper: The Times Of Israel, Center For Human Rights In Iran
