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April 27, 2016\u2014Three journalists and the brother of a journalist have been given prison sentences ranging from five to ten years after spending months in detention, the lawyer representing two of the individuals told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.<\/p>\n
The newspaper columnist Afarin Chitsaz, who wrote for Iran, the official daily newspaper of the Rouhani administration, was sentenced to 10 years in prison while the reformist journalist Ehsan Mazandarani, who is editor-in-chief of Farhikhtegan newspaper, was sentenced to seven years in prison. The reformist journalist Ehsan (Saman) Safarzaei, who is the international desk editor of Andisheh Pooya magazine, and Davoud Assadi, whose brother is the editor of a Paris-based dissident news website, were each sentenced to five years in prison.
\nMazandarani was found guilty of \u201cassembly and collusion against national security\u201d and \u201cpropaganda against the state,\u201d said his lawyer, Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaee, who is also representing Assadi. The charges were connected to Mazandarani\u2019s alleged collaboration with Iranian media outlets based abroad.
\n\u201cWe rejected this charge but the court made a ruling based on presented evidence that we believed to be unacceptable,\u201d said Tabatabaee.
\n\u201c[Assadi\u2019s] five-year prison sentence was also for \u2018assembly and collusion against national security.\u2019 He was found guilty because his brother, Houshang Assadi, an editor of RoozOnline, sent him money [from Paris], but Davoud insisted that he was unaware of the reason why his brother did so,\u201d added Tabatabaee. \u201cUnfortunately, the court did not accept this explanation.\u201d
\nThe sentences against Mazandarani and Assadi will be appealed, Tabatabaee told the Campaign.
\nTabatabaee added that even though he does not represent Afarin Chitsaz, he has learned that she received her 10-year prison sentence for alleged \u201ccollaboration with foreign governments\u201d in addition to \u201cassembly and collusion against national security.\u201d
\nAn informed source also told the Campaign that the court found Ehsan (Saman) Safarzaei\u2019s articles to be \u201cagainst national security.\u201d Since they were written for media outlets abroad, the judge decided that Safarzaei was guilty of \u201cassembly and collusion against national security\u201d even though his lawyer argued otherwise.
\nMazandarani and Chitsaz, and prominent journalist Issa Saharkhiz, who is still awaiting sentencing, were arrested by the Revolutionary Guards\u2019 Intelligence Organization during a wave of arrests on November 2, 2015.
\nA month after their arrest, Ahmad Khatami, a hardline member of the Assembly of Experts, accused the journalists of \u201ccooperation with America\u201d and claimed they had all confessed to writing for U.S. publications for money. News organizations affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards and Iran\u2019s security establishment have made similar allegations.
\n\u201cThe confessions of those recently arrested in connection with an infiltration plot will be broadcast in the near future and the Iranian people will see how they operated behind the scenes,\u201d said Ali Shirazi, the supreme leader\u2019s representative to the Revolutionary Guard\u2019s Qods Force, on February 1, 2016.
\nPolitical prisoners in Iran are subjected to harsh conditions and various forms of torture to extract false confessions, which are then used as evidence to convict.<\/p>\n
Follow the\u00a0Campaign on Facebook and Twitter
\nFor the latest human rights developments in Iran visit the Campaign\u2019s website
\nFor interviews, contact:
\nHadi Ghaemi at +1-917-669-5996, hadighaemi@iranhumanrights.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
April 27, 2016\u2014Three journalists and the brother of a journalist have been given prison sentences ranging from five to ten years after spending months in detention, the lawyer representing two<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=907"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":908,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions\/908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}