Abolfazl Damanjani, a protester in the January uprising in Mashhad, sentenced to 15 years in prison

Abolfazl Damanjani, a protester in the January 2026 uprising who lives in Mashhad, was sentenced to 15 years in prison by Branch 5 of the city's Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Yazdankhah. The sentence, which was issued some time ago, has only now been communicated to him, and he is currently held in Vakilabad prison in Mashhad.

The charges on which the Revolutionary Court issued this heavy sentence are "assembly and collusion", "propaganda against the system" and "acting against national security", the same boilerplate charges the Islamic Republic has used against hundreds of protesters in the months after the January uprising. The share of each charge in the total of 15 years has not been announced.

Arrested at his workplace

According to human rights sources, security agents raided Abolfazl Damanjani's shop on 10 January 2026 and arrested him. After his arrest he was held for a time in a detention centre of the security bodies under interrogation, and his family were left without news of him. He was then transferred to Vakilabad prison in Mashhad. HRANA, the news agency of the Human Rights Activists in Iran, has also confirmed the sentence. There is no news of an appeal in this case.

A wave of heavy sentences for protesters of the January uprising

Abolfazl Damanjani's sentence is part of a wave of heavy sentences that the Islamic Republic's revolutionary courts have handed down in recent months to those detained in the January uprising. Executions of protesters continue at the same time: Amnesty International called the execution of five protesters of the January uprising in one week a tool of intimidation, and on Wednesday, 14 October, Alisina Mostafavi, a mountaineer and political prisoner from Kerman, was executed.

Vakilabad prison in Mashhad has in these months held a number of those detained in the January uprising in Khorasan, among them Ahmad Rahimi, a Mashhad University professor who was arrested for helping the wounded, whose detention order has once again been extended.

Fifteen years in prison for a Mashhad shopkeeper on charges of "assembly and collusion" and "propaganda against the system" is a clear picture of the revolutionary courts' revenge on the protesters of the January uprising.