A court in the city of Tabriz, northwestern Iran sentenced 23 individuals who protested a state-run television program ridiculing the ethnic Azaries to a total of 23 years behind bars and 1,702 lashes.
Head of branch 112 of the Tabriz Criminal Court in northwest Iran has announced the charges raised against these individuals as “disrupting public order through participation in illegal gatherings.”
Sahar Tirandaz Lalezari, Hediye Fat’hi Rostami, Sorayia Azarhava, Farshad Sadeghi Khiyavi, Shayan Dolat-abadi, Safar Birami Ghoulan, Rameen Behzad Nahand, Milad Asghari, Bagher Faramarzi, Soheil Ghaderi, Reza Bagheri, Mohammad Shafaiean Kavij, Nosser Pourkhadiv Mayan, Sajed An’ami, Bahram Jodat Mayan, Toheed Alijani, Tayeb Alijani, Omid Hatami Aghdam, Ali Pejhman Akhule, Adel Amirpour Sefide Khavan, Hamed Nasibi Seis, Alireza Abdullahi Miran and Alireza Sha’ban Ghashlagh are the individuals condemned by this so-called court.
Thousands of Iranian Turks (Azeris) rallied in the cities of Tabriz, Urumieh, Ardebil, Zanjan, Meshkeenshahr and Khuy (northwest Iran) on Monday, November 9, 2015, protesting insults against the Turk community in state-run TV shows. These protests turned violent as the police and security forces intervened and a large number of protesters in different cities were apprehended.

(oyannews.com – March 2, 2016)