Mehdi Hajati, formerly a member of Iranian parliament for the city of Shiraz, was born in 1979 in Fars Province. Hajati is a reformist-leaning political activist who has, to date, been arrested and sent to prison twice by security forces.

Hajati was also previously deputy chairman of the Commission for Civil Construction, Transport and Traffic and president of the Commission for Citizens’ Rights, during the fifth term for the municipal council of Shiraz.

Hajati was arrested for the first time on September 27, 2018 by an intelligence agency for defending citizens of the Baha'i religious minority by sharing the story of how two Baha’i citizens had been arrested in Shiraz earlier that month. On October 7, after ten days in prison, he was released on a bail of two billion rials until his case could be heard.

In November 2018, Mehdi Moghaddari, a member of parliament for the city of Isfahan, was also summoned to court by the security police on the accusation of spreading propaganda against the state. Moghaddari had shared an Instagram post in defence of Hajati. Moghaddari said: “Why do some people not understand this obvious point? Or perhaps, why do they not want to understand that having the right does not necessarily mean being right? Every human being, even if we don’t like their thoughts and ideas or even if we don’t know them, has rights, the most important of which is the right to a fair trial. Freedom is about defending one another’s rights, even for those with whom you disagree. Release Mehdi Hajati.”

Mehdi Moghaddari continued his post by saying: “There is a suspicious movement [in Iran] which hopes to eliminate these activists. They are unaware that their attempts to destroy hope is the beginning of collapse. Perhaps that is the mission of some, but history will make everything clear!”

After his temporary release on bail, Hajati was prevented by court order from attending the Shiraz city council meetings. When this court order was finally annulled, on February 3, 2019, it had been nearly 130 days since Hajati had been able to attend a municipal council meeting. In a statement, Hajati said that his case was undergoing legal proceedings in court, adding that “I am waiting for the final verdict to be issued and announced by the judicial authorities.”

In his role as president of the Commission for Citizens Rights for Shiraz, he also spoke in an interview with the Iranian Labor News Agency, saying: “Due to the completion of the investigatory stage of my legal case, the judicial oversight and restrictions on my activity have now been lifted.”

After nearly four months, on June 2, 2019, Hajati was sentenced to a year in prison, on the charge of spreading “propaganda against the state,” and was arrested at his home by security agents who transferred him to Adelabad Prison in Shiraz. His arrest and imprisonment took place only the day after he had received a text message which had informed him of the court’s verdict and sentence. The Revolutionary Court also added a two-year exile to Tabas.

On June 10, 2019, a group of political and civil activists published a statement which criticised judicial conduct in Hajati’s arrest and imprisonment, and protested against the court’s verdict in his case.

A portion of this statement, which was published in full on the HRA news website stated, “With the case of Mehdi Hajati, we realise how every day it is becoming more and more difficult for people to exercise their right to representation and advocacy, to the extreme extent that speaking honestly and genuinely in the outright defence of other people’s rights is met with imprisonment and detention. Some time ago he [Hajati] was attacked for defending the rights of two Baha’i citizens, but they [the Iranian government] have probably forgotten that every international and internal group asserts that Baha’is have human rights.”

On June 22, 2019, Heydar Asiyabi, the Attorney General of Shiraz, said in an interview with ISNA News Agency that the accusations against Mr Hajati were related to “security” and that charges of “actions against the state” were not related to his Twitter posts.

Sixty-eight student organizations also protested against the verdict in Hajati’s case by issuing a statement on July 9, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the 1999 attack by security forces on University of Tehran student residences. In part of this statement, they said: "Don’t allow these rulings to make people think that their actions and choices will be silenced. Don’t reinforce the idea that those who fight for citizens’ rights with courage and integrity will be imprisoned."

After he had served two months of his prison sentence, Hajati wrote a letter to his wife, saying how much he missed her and expressing his hope that he would be freed from “these countless days in prison.” He wrote: “In prison, I am counting the days on a calendar, thinking of the tree that witnessed our kiss, and of the sacrifices we make for our son Bamdad and our daughter Mahour.” 

On August 12, 2019, Mohammad-Reza Amiri, the Shiraz governor, announced Hajati’s replacement on the Shiraz city council. In an interview with the Islamic Republic News Agency, Amiri said: “Following the announcement of the Shiraz City Council, as the Governor of the Shiraz and second stand-in member, I have been tasked with finding the replacement for the former member of the city council who has resigned [Hajati]. The third stand-in member of the council to be invited is Mohammad Taghi Tazravi, who accepted the appointment. He was presented to the Shiraz City Council to replace the former member, who must officially replace Mr Hajati in the next meeting of the council.”

On January 23, 2020, after he had served eight months of his sentence, the Iranian Labor News Agency announced that Hajati had been released from prison on bail.

On March 12, 2020, less than two months later, after the Attorney General had published a threatening announcement concerning publishing information and reporting about the coronavirus outbreak, Mehdi Hajati was arrested for the second time.

Zahreh Rastagari, Hajati’s wife, announced on her Twitter page that Hajati had been arrested on the order of Branch 10 of the Revolutionary Court of Shiraz.

A day earlier, Hajati had written on his personal Twitter account a criticism of the lack of quarantine measures in the city of Qom. He wrote: “Enemies, enemies, don’t look! Today, the enemies of the nation of Iran are those that have agreed to gamble with the lives of our compatriots in order to reduce the threat of our current hypothetical enemy. The enemies of the Iranian nation are precisely those who have not placed Qom under quarantine. Our Iran will ultimately be fine, but do not forget [these actions].”

In another post, he said: “The father of Ali Abedini, who is a political prisoner in Shiraz’s Adelabad Prison, had been repeatedly visiting the prison to try and secure his son’s leave. However, he contracted the coronavirus disease and has sadly passed away. What these political prisoners receive from these pardons is death.”

On March 16, 2020, Medhi Hajati was released from prison on  bail. However, after being freed, he was informed that a new legal case had been opened against him on fresh accusations of spreading “propaganda against the state” as well as “spreading false news.”