Authorities have targeted journalist Leili Farhadpour, but also her son, journalist and editor Behrang Tonekaboni. Despite spending 54 days in prison, the charges against her have not been confirmed.
Name: Leili Farhadpour
Career: Journalist and writer.
Charges: Not revealed.
Leili Farhadpour was arrested and imprisoned by security forces in the aftermath of the disputed 2009 presidential elections, and also suffered the detention of her son.
On January 5, 2010 her son Behrang Tonekaboni, a music journalist and the editor-in-chief of the magazine Farhang va Ahang (Culture and Music) was arrested at his office. The security agents searched the premises and confiscated the magazine’s computers. They then raided Farhadpour’s house and took away books, personal notebooks, her computer and whatever belongings they found suspicious.
For two weeks she searched for her son, going to various government offices and detention centers to discover his whereabouts and the charges against him. For hours she would sit in front of the gates of Evin Prison hoping to get some information. On January 18 she experienced a heart problem while sitting outside the prison and was taken to the hospital.
On January 20, Farhadpour went to a Revolutionary Court because an official there had given her an appointment and had promised to provide her with some information about her son. The official reneged and she returned home without discovering any information about him. The same day she was arrested at her home and spent 54 days in prison.
At first the judge in the case set her bail at around $19,000 but the warden of Evin’s Cell Block 209, which houses women political prisoners, refused to release her. When she protested against this illegal action the warden increased her bail fourfold. She submitted the collateral for the bail and was released. The court later sentenced her to one year in prison but she has yet to begin serving it, and the charges against her remain shrouded.
This is part of IranWire’s series Crime: Journalism, a portfolio on the legal and political persecution of Iranian journalists and bloggers, published in both Persian and English.
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