Despite being imprisoned three times and spending months in solitary confinement, Sasan Aghaei continues to work as a journalist for Etemad newspaper. In 2009, he published a letter telling the people of Iran not to believe the authorities if they said he had repented; as a result, his sentence was extended.
Name: Sasan Aghaei
Career: Journalist; has worked with various publications including Etemad, Hambastegi, Mardom Salary, Tose’e and Sobh-e Azadi.
Charges: Propaganda against the regime and dissemination of lies.
Sasan Aghaei has been arrested three times, most recently on January 27, 2013 with 17 other journalists. He was sent to solitary confinement in Cell Block 240 for 38 days, and was one of the last in the group of journalists to be released. Bails ranged from $40,000 to $80,000.
Prior to this, Aghaei was arrested twice in 2009; both times he was held at Evin Prison. He was first detained while reporting on a rally to commemorate those killed in the 1999 student protests over the closing of the reformist newspaper Salam. He spent 16 days in solitary confinement, again in Cell Block 240. His family eventually secured his release.
He was arrested at his home for the second time on November 22, 2009 in the violent aftermath of the presidential election. He signed a letter along with 293 journalists, civil rights activists, students and intellectuals asking religious and political leaders, including former presidents Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, to “stand up to the coup d’état”. This was the first time the disputed election had been labeled “a coup”, and it enraged authorities and security officials.
Aghaei spent more than 40 days in solitary confinement at Evin Prison, and a further 50 days in shared cells in the security ward until the Revolutionary Court transferred him to Cell Block 350, well known for housing political prisoners.
He wrote a letter while in detention, telling the outside world not to believe it if authorities claimed that he had repented. “My fellow countrymen, you must know that the only source of my meager income has been domestic newspapers,” he wrote. “I have not received a penny from websites or from TV or radio outside the country.” In response to authorities’ claims that the West has tried to stage a revolution in Iran since the collapse of the Soviet Union, he said: “Up this point I have never met a foreigner or had a passport so I couldn’t have had an ‘education in Velvet Revolution.’”
Publishing this letter extended his sentence. However, because Aghaei had been detained for a significant period of time prior to sentencing, his lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei was able to secure his bail. Officials at at Evin Prison refused to release him on March 21, and he was not released until eight days later than officially ordered.
His trial, during which he was sentenced to one year in prison, lasted just a few minutes.
Aghaei now works for Etemad newspaper.
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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