Iran protests: Tortured twin sisters arrested at 19, one sentenced to death, other gets 25 years

Dubai: For four months, Marzieh Nourmohammadi searched for her twin daughters.

She went from hospitals to government offices and courts, desperately trying to discover what had happened to Taraneh and Romina Rahimi after masked men took the 19-year-old high school students from their beds in the middle of the night.

Then came a phone call.

“We have your girls, come to see them at the prison,” their US-based cousin Masoud Nourmohammadi recalled the family being told.

When their mother was finally allowed into Dowlatabad prison in Isfahan in May, she could barely recognise them, according to the family’s account.

Their faces were swollen and bruised. Their cousin said they had injuries to their elbows, knuckles and feet and patches of hair were missing from their scalps after allegedly being dragged between cells by their hair.

Now the family has received another devastating blow.

Taraneh has been sentenced to death over her participation in Iran’s January anti-government protests, while her twin sister Romina has been sentenced to 25 years in prison, according to The Guardian.

The sisters, now 20, have not been seen by their family since the sentencing.

Taken after joining protests

Taraneh and Romina had joined demonstrations in Isfahan on January 8 and 9 as protests swept cities across Iran.

About a month later, masked men subsequently identified as having been sent by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized the twins from their home, according to the report.

Bags were placed over their heads and they were taken away without an explanation to their family.

Their relatives then spent months trying to find them.

The family says neither sister had previously participated in protests and claims no evidence was presented showing that they had been involved in violence.

Their mother, who raised the twins alone, was not permitted to attend their trial.

‘Confession’ under torture

Taraneh’s lawyers said she told the court that admissions attributed to her had been extracted under torture.

The family alleges that prison guards threatened to sexually assault Romina in front of Taraneh unless she signed a confession.

The sisters were also allegedly held in solitary confinement.

Why two twins arrested over the same protests received dramatically different sentences — death for Taraneh and 25 years for Romina — remains unclear.

Masoud, a 43-year-old healthcare IT specialist who moved from Iran to the United States 22 years ago, believes the severity of Taraneh’s sentence is intended to intimidate other Iranians considering taking to the streets.

“They’re looking to put fear within the people,” he said, arguing that the message was that nobody was beyond the authorities’ reach.

He also expressed concern that normal appeal procedures may not protect his cousin, claiming that in some recent execution cases prisoners had been put to death without the expected appeal process being completed.

Dream of a horse stable

Behind the prison sentences are two young women whose lives, until months ago, revolved around school and plans for the future.

Taraneh dreams of one day running her own horse stable.

Their grandmother, who lives with Masoud in Utah, has been devastated by what has happened to the twins.

“There’s not a single second that I pass her and she’s not crying,” he said.

The sisters’ case comes amid a wider crackdown following January’s protests.

More than 500 people have been executed in Iran this year despite the logistical pressures created by the war with the United States and Israel, according to The Guardian. At least 29 were executed in connection with the January protests and at least 16 of those executed this year were women.

Hundreds more protesters have reportedly received death sentences or face charges that could carry capital punishment, including more than 70 in Isfahan.

Last month, Britain and 30 other countries issued a joint statement condemning executions connected to the January demonstrations, describing them as an attempt to silence dissent.

For Marzieh, however, the crisis is intensely personal. Months after she searched across Isfahan simply to discover whether her daughters were alive, she is now confronting the prospect that one could be taken from her permanently.