Woman human rights defender Atena Daemi was sentenced to seven years in prison on 29 September 2016 with three other people on charges of “assembly and collusion against national security” and “insulting the supreme leader.” The charges were based on her meetings with the families of political prisoners, criticising the Islamic Republic of Iran on Facebook, campaigning against the death penalty, and condemning the 1988 mass executions of political prisoners in Iran.

On 08 April 2017, she started a hunger strike in protest. However, her health quickly deteriorated and she did not react well to the needed medical care.

She was beaten by agents of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in Tehran’s Evin Prison and then transferred to Gharchak Prison in the city of Varamin on 24 January 2018.

On 24 January 2022, she was released from prison and then went to Canada to treat her MS.

Daemi has been repeatedly persecuted for practicing her basic rights. She was beaten and pepper sprayed during her arrest. Daemi was previously arrested on 21 October 2014 for similar charges, and spent several months in prison and kept for 51 days in solitary confinement during her imprisonment for no clear reasons.