Amnesty calls for immediate release of Maryam Shafipour as concerns continue about her deteriorating health in Tehran jail

An Iranian court has sentenced a leading student activist and human rights campaigner to seven years in prison for peaceful political activism.

Maryam Shafipour, 29, who is being held in a women's wing of Evin prison in Tehran, was found guilty of "spreading propaganda" and "gathering and colluding" against the ruling system. She was arrested in July after being summoned for questioning and was kept in solitary confinement for more than two months without access to her lawyer.

The opposition website Sahamnews reported on Sunday that her sentence was issued by Abolghasem Salavati, a judge at the Islamic revolutionary court. He has handed down heavy sentences to activists and campaigners in recent years, especially in the aftermath of the disputed presidential election in 2009. It was not clear if Shafipour had access to legal representation in the court.

Maryam Shafipour was jailed 'merely for peacefully expressing her views', says Amnesty.

In 2009, Shafipour, a student of agricultural engineering from the Imam Khomeini International University in Qazvin, a province west of Tehran, campaigned for the opposition leader and former presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi, and was a member of the women's committee for his campaign. She was first arrested in 2010 and subsequently given to a one-year suspended prison term. She has since been barred from continuing her education and expelled from university. Other student activists imprisoned in Iran include Majid Tavakkoli, Bahareh Hedayat, Seyyed Zia Nabavi, Majid Dori and Navid Khanjani.

A relative of Shafipour told the opposition website Kaleme that the activist had been under pressure from her interrogators to confess and had been mistreated and tortured in jail.

In December, the Committee of Human Rights Reporters in Iran (CHRR) reported that Shafipour's health was deteriorating in Evin.

"In the past week her high blood pressure reached dangerous levels rendering her unconscious and she was transferred to the prison's infirmary," CHRR reported.

"Despite the recommendation by the prison's doctor that Shafipour immediately receive an MRI, the prison authorities did not comply. In addition during the past weeks Maryam Shafipour has been suffering from extreme toothache but she has not been seen by a dentist nor been allowed to receive medical attention for her teeth."

Amnesty International has also said that Shafipour reportedly passed out in December after experiencing an irregular heartbeat.

The charity's Middle East and north Africa deputy director, Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, said on Monday: "Maryam Shafipour's conviction is a chilling reminder of how little Iran's human rights record has changed since 2009, when students were arrested in droves during postelection unrest.

"That a student could be jailed for seven years merely for peacefully expressing her views or supporting an opposition politician defies belief.

"Maryam Shafipour should be immediately and unconditionally released, and allowed to continue her studies. She should not spend the next seven years languishing in Evin prison."