Mehdi Shafakhah, Advocate for Working Children, Sentenced to Two Years and Three Months in Prison

Breathing in Confinement, Sunday, 6 September 2026: Mehdi Shafakhah, a volunteer coach and advocate for working children, has been sentenced to prison by the judiciary of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

According to Breathing in Confinement, the news outlet of the Prisoners’ Rights League in Iran, Reza Shafakhah, an attorney and Mehdi Shafakhah’s brother, announced that his brother had been sentenced to two years and three months in prison.

Mehdi Shafakhah was arrested at his home on Tuesday, 12 May, by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence. Prior to his arrest, he had spent several years volunteering in disadvantaged and marginalised communities, with much of his work focused on providing sports training to working children and vulnerable adolescents.

Through these voluntary activities, Shafakhah sought to provide deprived children and adolescents with access to education and sporting activities, helping to protect them from social harms including addiction, violence and delinquency, while creating a safer environment for their development and education.

Following his arrest, his relatives also highlighted his long history of social work, emphasising that for years he had worked without payment to support children living in deprived and marginalised areas, using sport as a means of fostering hope and safety and reducing social harms among them.

Mehdi Shafakhah is the brother of Reza Shafakhah, an attorney and advocate for children’s rights and the rights of political prisoners.