She was sentenced to one year in prison. On July 8th 2015 she was released after serving her sentence.

Sajedeh Arab Sorkhi is the daughter of Feyzollah Arab Sorkhi, the former deputy trade minister under reformist President Mohammad Khatami and a leader of the Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution Organization (MIRO). He spent four years in prison following the aftermath of the contested 2009 presidential election. 

In September 2013, after Hassan Rouhani had become president, Sajedeh Arab Sorkhi travelled from France, where she had been living and studying, to Iran to visit her family and in particular her father, who was on medical leave from prison. Unaware that she would be accused of activities against the Islamic Republic by two separate agencies, she brought her eight-year old daughter to Iran with her.

In the first case against her, she was tried in absentia at Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court by Judge Moghisei and was sentenced to one year in prison. She was accused of propaganda against the regime; email exchanges between Arab Sorkhi and her father were put forth as evidence against her. The Intelligence Division of the Revolutionary Guards opened the second case against her, also accusing her of propaganda against the regime. She was summoned to the Revolutionary Court and, on November 24th 2013, she stood trial. Her mother was told before the trial that her daughter would be released following interrogations if the family settled a bail $56,000. However, following her interrogation, the judge doubled the original bail amount and she was detained overnight.

On July 8th 2014, Sajedeh Arab Sorkhi began a one-year sentence at Evin Prison. Numerous human rights organizations and figures, including Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders and US philosopher Noam Chomsky, demanded her release. On August 30th 2014, Arabsorkhi wrote an open letter from prison, stating that the reason she’d been arrested was to scare Iranian expatriates from returning to Iran. “Everyday a judicial or security authority discusses convictions in absentia to keep our youths—our investments for a better Iran—in foreign countries and allow the corrupt and power-hungry to have the country to themselves,” she wrote. “But I, prisoner number 242211 of the women’s ward at Evin Prison, say loudly that if I was given the chance to go back one year ago and decide whether or not to come to Tehran, I would hold my head high and do the same again, even if the Guards’ interrogator welcomed me at the airport and took me straight to prison.”

On July 8th 2015, Sajedeh Arab Sorkhi was released after serving her one-year sentence in Evin Prison.