After two unexplained arrests and weeks in solitary confinement, journalist Vahid Pourostad fled Iran. He currently works for the independent broadcaster Radio Farda, where he continues to give a voice to political prisoners who’ve had their human rights infringed.
Name: Vahid Pourostad
Career: Journalist; worked with several publications including Salam, Azad, Aftab-e Emrouz, Norouz, Eghbal, Sarmayeh, Yas-e Now and Etemad-e Melli.
Charges: Activities against national security.
Vahid Pourostad was arrested in February 2010 at his mother-in-law’s house. Security agents, who gave no explanation for his arrest, also searched his house and confiscated a number of his belongings, including his computer, his cellphone and notebooks.
Pourostad was earlier arrested in 2003 for his work on the editorial board of Yas-e Now, a reformist daily newspaper; he spent 11 days in jail.
His second detention at Evin Prison lasted 33 days. Of that, he spent two weeks in solitary confinement and was then transferred to Cell Block 240, where he shared a cell with two other inmates. He was released on bail on March 13, 2010.
After his release, Pourostad left Iran and he now works with Radio Farda, an independent broadcast service based in Prague and funded by the US Congress. He specializes in politics and has also produced an 18-part series called “Solitary Confinement,” which looks at Iranian political prisoners and prisoners of conscience from the 1979 Islamic Revolution to the present day. The series won the prestigious Silver Microphone award in New York in 2012.
Pourostad is a law school graduate and has written several books on the Iranian press and press laws.
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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