Iran sentences vote detainee to jail and lashes

TEHRAN (Reuters) – A court has sentenced a man detained after Iran’s disputed election in June to seven years in jail and 74 lashes, the reformist Mowjcamp website said on Wednesday.
It was the first report of someone arrested over the election protests being sentenced to lashes. The June 12 vote triggered huge street demonstrations by opposition supporters accusing the authorities of rigging the result.
Several other post-election detainees have received jail terms and three people have been sentenced to death, according to Iranian media.
Mowjcamp said a Revolutionary Court had sentenced Soheil Navidi Yekta to both imprisonment and lashes on charges including acting against national security, propaganda against the clerical establishment and disturbing public order.
There was no immediate comment from Iranian officials.
The website said Navidi Yekta was the son of a “war martyr,” a term used for Iranians who were killed during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, and that he had no previous criminal record.
Thousands of people were detained after the election five months ago. Most of them have since been freed, but more than 100 have been charged with fomenting post-election street unrest, including senior reformist figures.
The authorities deny opposition charges that the poll was rigged to secure President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election and accuse foreign powers of stoking the unrest that erupted in the days after the vote.
(Editing by Dominic Evans)