Accessibility links

Breaking News

Founder Of Prominent Iranian Charity Fled Into Exile After 'Months Of Torture'


Sharmin Meymandinejad, the founder of the Imam Ali's Popular Student Relief Society, was arrested and charged with insulting Iran's leaders. He was kept in detention for months, during which he alleges he was tortured.
Sharmin Meymandinejad, the founder of the Imam Ali's Popular Student Relief Society, was arrested and charged with insulting Iran's leaders. He was kept in detention for months, during which he alleges he was tortured.

For over 20 years, the Imam Ali's Popular Student Relief Society has worked on combating poverty and helping vulnerable children in Iran.

But the charity, which has over 10,000 volunteers across Iran, has come under mounting pressure from the authorities in recent years. In 2021, an Iranian court ordered the independent NGO be dissolved, a ruling that was upheld by an appeals court last year.

In July 2021, the charity's founder, Sharmin Meymandinejad, was arrested and charged with insulting Iran's leaders. He was kept in detention for months, during which he alleges he was tortured.

In an interview with RFE/RL's Radio Farda, Meymandinejad, who recently fled Iran, said the clerical establishment saw his grassroots organization as a threat.

He said his organization's interpretation of Islam clashed with what he called the intolerant and violent version promoted by the authorities.

"Our path was different than the one taken by the establishment, our reading of the religion was an attempt to promote self-sacrifice, mercy, and altruism," said the 53-year-old, who now resides in the United States with his wife and three children.

"But the reading promoted by the establishment is based on violence, which the authorities claim comes from above, they even say from God," he added.

The crackdown on the charity, which is widely known as the Imam Ali's Society, came after years of state pressure and a smear campaign by hard-liners, who have branded the organization a cult, Meymandinejad said.

One of the NGO's biggest critics has been the ultra-hard-line daily Kayhan, whose editor in chief was appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"We didn't want to challenge the establishment. We were doing social work based on real [Islamic] principles," said Meymandinejad.

"They saw that a [nongovernmental] group was doing the work [of the government] and that comparisons could be made," he said.

The Imam Ali's Society has been credited with helping alleviate poverty and aiding marginalized Iranians. In comparison, large state charities with extensive funds are often seen as corrupt and ineffective.

The Imam Ali's Society, one of the largest NGOs in the Islamic republic, was launched in 1999 by a group of students led by Meymandinejad at Tehran's Sharif University of Technology. The organization originally focused on poverty alleviation but has since expanded its activities to include providing education, medical care, and social and cultural events for vulnerable children and campaigning against the death penalty for offenders who committed crimes as minors. The group has been credited with saving around 50 minors on death row.

Rights groups criticized the 2021 court order to disband the Imam's Ali Society as an assault on independent NGOs and said the ruling had been "made in apparent coordination with Iran's abusive intelligence and security apparatus."

It is unclear if the charity is still active or has been dissolved.

The original court order was issued following a complaint by the Interior Ministry, which said the Imam Ali's Society had "deviated" from its mission. As evidence, the court cited the group's "questioning of Islamic rulings," including the principle of qisas, or retributive justice, as well as "promoting falsehood by publishing statements against the Islamic republic of Iran."

The move came amid a wider crackdown on civil society and dissent. Scores of activists, lawyers, and journalists have been arrested in recent years.

The Oslo-based Iran Human Rights reported last year that two other NGOs, including the Society For the Protection of Children, have also come under pressure by the authorities.

'I Broke'

In his interview with Radio Farda, Meymandinejad also accused the authorities of sending children from poor Iranian families to fight in the war in Syria, where Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) deployed military advisers and fighters to prop up the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Meymandinejad also accused the authorities of using minors to help crush nationwide antiestablishment protests that erupted in September.

Photos appeared on social media in October that purportedly showed children and adolescent boys wearing uniforms and holding batons. They appeared to be wearing the uniforms of the Basij paramilitary forces, a branch of the IRGC.

Members and supporters of the Imam Ali's Society said the authorities had recruited children from impoverished families to help "suppress" the street protests. In exchange, the minors received a "few bags of food," the charity said.

The Imam Ali's Society was among several groups that warned that the use of child soldiers was against international law.

Meymandinejad said he will continue to hold Iran's clerical establishment accountable for its actions even from exile.

He said state pressure and the alleged torture he suffered during his time in detention forced him to leave his homeland.

"I was weak, I wasn't strong like [prominent jailed rights activist] Narges Mohammadi. I was concerned that my children will pay the price for my activities," he said.

"After four months of torture I broke and signed whatever they wanted. I broke because of my children," he added.

  • 16x9 Image

    Mohammad Zarghami

    Mohammad Zarghami is a senior journalist and anchor at RFE/RL's Radio Farda who reported from Tehran before moving to Prague. He focuses on Iran's politics and social issues. Zarghami has conducted dozens of interviews with prominent Iranian and international public figures.

  • 16x9 Image

    Golnaz Esfandiari

    Golnaz Esfandiari is managing editor of RFE/RL's Radio Farda, which breaks through government censorship to deliver accurate news and provide a platform for informed discussion and debate to audiences in Iran. She has reported from Afghanistan and Haiti and is one of the authors of The Farda Briefing newsletter. Her work has been cited by The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other major publications. Born and raised in Tehran, she is fluent in Persian, French, English, and Czech.

RFE/RL has been declared an "undesirable organization" by the Russian government.

If you are in Russia or the Russia-controlled parts of Ukraine and hold a Russian passport or are a stateless person residing permanently in Russia or the Russia-controlled parts of Ukraine, please note that you could face fines or imprisonment for sharing, liking, commenting on, or saving our content, or for contacting us.

To find out more, click here.

XS
SM
MD
LG