A British-Iranian woman who tried to attend a men's volleyball match in Iran in protest at the country’s laws banning women from some men’s sporting events has been handed a one-year jail sentence by a Tehran court, her lawyer said Sunday.

Ghoncheh Ghavami, a 25-year-old law graduate from London, was detained on June 20 outside the Azadi (“Freedom” in Farsi) Stadium where she and a group of other female activists were demanding to be let in to watch the Iranian men’s volleyball team take on Italy.

Although she was released a few hours later, she was re-arrested days later when she was called back to reclaim personal belongings that authorities had confiscated.

Having been in custody since, Ghavami went on trial behind closed doors last month.

“According to the verdict she was sentenced to one year,” her lawyer Alizadeh Tabatabaie was quoted in Iranian media as saying on Sunday.

Tabatabaei, who says he has not been allowed to visit his client later told The Associated Press the sentence was for spreading propaganda “against the ruling system” – a broad charge often used by Iran’s judiciary.

Amnesty: Sentence an ‘outrage’

Ghavami’s case has drawn considerable attention because of her dual nationality, lengthy time in prison before trial and criticism of her treatment while in custody.

Britain, which has no permanent diplomatic presence in Iran but has said it plans to reopen its embassy soon, said it had several worries about the way Ghavami had been treated and now reportedly sentenced to a jail term.

“We are concerned about reports that Ghoncheh Ghavami has been sentenced to 12 months in prison for ‘propaganda against the state’,” a spokesman from the Foreign Office in London said in a statement.

“We have concerns about the grounds for this prosecution, due process during the trial, and Miss Ghavami’s treatment whilst in custody.”

Iran does not recognise dual citizenship and treats dual nationals as Iranians.

Amnesty International dubbed the court judgement “appalling”.

Since her detention, Ghavami has been held in solitary confinement at Tehran’s Evin prison, according to the right’s group. She began a hunger strike earlier this month over her detention, Amnesty says.

“It’s an outrage that a young woman is being locked up simply for peacefully having her say about how women are discriminated against in Iran,” said Kate Allen, the rights group’s director for Britain.

“Ghoncheh is a prisoner of conscience and the Iranian authorities should quash the sentence and release her immediately and unconditionally.”

Iran has banned women from attending men’s football games since 1979, but in 2012 extended the ban to cover men’s volleyball matches – a popular sport in the country.

According to some media reports, Ghavami became involved with a group of women’s rights campaigners after arriving in Iran in February and had previously joined another protest outside the Azadi Stadium against the ban on women attending volleyball matches.

However, in an online petition for Ghavami’s release, which has over 700,000 signatures, her brother Iman Ghavami says she had been in Iran “to work for a charity teaching literacy to street children and see our family” and that her arrest was a “tragic misunderstanding”.

“She thought women would be allowed to attend World League volleyball matches after Iran was warned about the matter by International Federation of Volleyball (FIVB),” he writes.

A Facebook page where her friends and family have campaigned for her release features photographs of her against the slogan: “Jailed for wanting to watch a volleyball match”.

Officials, however, have said Ghavami was detained for security reasons unrelated to the sporting event.

Human rights

British Prime Minister David Cameron raised Ghavami’s case during a meeting with Iran’s President Hassan Rohani in September at the UN General Assembly in New York.

Cameron underlined “the impact that such cases had on Iran’s image in the UK,” a Downing Street spokesman said at the time.

The verdict also comes with Iran under international pressure over its human rights record.

When Rohani, a moderate elected last year, has been questioned about a soaring number of executions and detentions under his rule, he has stressed the judiciary is independent of his government.

However, many diplomats at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last week voiced outrage at the situation of political prisoners, women and religious minorities in Iran.

They also decried arrests and harassment of journalists, forced confessions and lack of access to fair trials.

Mohammad Javad Larijani, secretary general of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights, responded by saying his country had made great progress in the past four years.

His comments came after the UN’s special rapporteur on Iran, Ahmed Shahhed, said the Islamic republic has executed at least 850 people in the past 15 months.

(FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP, REUTERS)