Farid Mohammadnezhad, a social media and Turkish Azeri civil society activist, lives in Maku, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran. He is the manager of the Yurt TV Instagram page, which publishes posts on events and news in the West Azerbaijan province.

In summer 2020, Farid Mohammadnezhad posted a number of videos on the Yurt TV Instagram page in which he called for the removal of a statue of Abolghasem Ferdowsi, a prominent Iranian poet, from Maku’s Hafte Felke Sii Square. Mohammadnezhad described Ferdowsi’s poems as racist. Many Turkish and Turkish Azeri citizens believe these texts emphasized the purity and superiority of Persian Iranians over other ethnicities. He called for the removal of Ferdowsi’s statue following the Black Lives Matter and anti-racism protests that took place in the United States after the death of George Floyd. 

Following a legal complaint, filed by the West Azerbaijan police force, Mohammadnezhad was arrested in July 2020. He was soon released on bail.

Farid Mohammadnezhad’s trial was heard in Branch 101 of the Second Criminal Courts of Maku, presided over by Judge Erfani Alamdari.

He was eventually sentenced to one year imprisonment on the charges of “disturbing public opinion” and “inciting and encouraging people to commit acts of violence.” He was informed of this sentence on August 22, 2020.

Yavar Soltani, the manager of the Maku Times Instagram page and another resident of Maku, was also sentenced to one year imprisonment on the same charges as part of a joint legal case.

On October 18, 2020, Branch 13 of the Court of Appeal for West Azerbaijan province suspended eight months of Mohammadnezhad’s total twelve-month prison sentence for a period of two years. However, Mohammadnezhad must still serve four months in prison in accordance with the remainder of his prison sentence.

In December 2020, after Farid Mohammadnezhad received a summons which required him to report to the Branch for the Enforcement of Sentences, he was arrested on December 14, 2020 and transferred to Maku Prison in order to serve his four month prison sentence.