Afarin Chitsaz Back in Prison and Banned from Journalism

Journalist Afarin Chitsaz returned to Evin Prison on September 10, after two months’ release on bail pending an appeal. She now faces two years in prison after her 10-year sentence was reduced. Chitsaz’s lawyer Mohammad Moghimi also announced that authorities had banned her from practicing journalism for two years. 

Authorities ordered her back to prison despite her doctors insisting that she required surgery on her left knee. She has been refused external medical care for the ongoing problem. 

On June 29, the appeals court reduced Chitsaz’s sentence. But her lawyer said he was not informed of the verdict until September 7.

On July 5, officials granted the journalist a medical leave of absence if she agreed to pay $320,000 in bail. On July 21, she was hospitalized for a knee operation and had been recovering at her parents’ home since August 10.

“My client is under medical treatment for meniscus tears in her knees and for this reason her furlough has been extended several times,” Moghimi told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. “Her right knee has been operated on and her other knee needs surgery as well. I am hopeful that she will be allowed to remain outside of prison for as long as her treatment requires.” He acknowledged that she would have to return to prison, but had hoped it would be after her second surgery — a request that was refused.

Intelligence agents Revolutionary Guards arrested Chitsaz — one of four journalists accused of involvement in an “infiltration network” — on November 2, 2015. In March 2016, Judge Mohammad Moghiseh tried her in a Revolutionary Court, sentencing her to 10 years in prison on charges of “assembly and conspiracy against national security” and “collaboration with hostile governments.” The European Union has blacklisted Moghiseh for violating the rights of defendants. 

In April, Chitsaz's mother told BBC Persian that interrogators had beaten her daughter with a water bottle and that she had been forced to confess to crimes she had not committed. 

In early December 2015, after the arrests of Chitsaz and others, 90 journalists wrote an open letter expressing their objection. “These journalists have been arrested on the repeated and unsubstantiated charge of cooperating with media outside the country and even the president of the Islamic republic has called these arrests ‘frame-ups,'" her lawyer said. "These arrests...are contrary to Iranian laws and the international laws that the Islamic Republic has committed to observe.”