Last Update

Unknown

Organisation

Unknown

Gender

Male

Ethnic Group

Unknown

Religoius Group

Muslim

Province

Kerman

Occupation

Journalist

Sentence

Two and a half years imprisonment

Status

Released

Institution investigating

IRGC Intelligence

Charges

Acting against National Security
Propaganda against the regime

Abbas Vahedi Released

Abbas Vahedi is a writer and content producer for the Narenji (‘Orange’) website and was arrested in 2013.

Abbas Vahedi, author and content producer of The Narenji website, was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison and released after serving his sentence.

Vahedi was arrested by Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence officers in Kerman on the morning of 2 December 2013; thirteen other Narenji employees were arrested at the same time. Two days after the arrests and subsequent interrogations, the office’s secretary and intern were released.

The ten others from Narenji who were arrested and sentenced were Ali Asghar Honarmand, Hossein Nozari, Ehsan Paknejad, Reza Nozari, Mehdi Faryabi, Amir Sadeghpour, Alireza Vaziri, Mohammad Musazadeh, Mostafa Pour Gharib and Maliheh Nakhaei.

Vahedi was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison on two counts of “propaganda against the government” and “gathering and colluding against national security” and was transferred to Kerman Prison without appeal on 17 December 2016. Mr. Vahedi was finally released from prison on completion of his sentence.

The Narenji covered news on the technology industry and portable gadgets and was owned by the Pat Shargh Govashir Technology company. This site was launched by a group of technology bloggers in Kerman and soon became one of the most popular technology sites in Iran. Narenji and Pat Shargh Govashir closed after its members were arrested.

The website won Best Information Website in the Third Online Festival of Iranian Websites in 2010 and Deutsche Welle’s Best Persian Blog Award in 2012.

According to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, eleven members of the Narenji website were sentenced to two counts of propaganda against the systatestem and acting against national security at Branch #4 of the Kerman Revolutionary Court on 24 May 2014. Ali Asghar Honarmand, Hossein Nozari, Ehsan Paknejad and Abbas Vahedi were sentenced to eleven years to 2.5 in prison respectively, and seven others were sentenced to six months in prison with their sentences suspended for three years. Their appeal was held at Branch One of the Kerman Judiciary more than a year later.

Kerman Deputy Prosecutor Ahmad Ghorbani said on 3 December 2013, a day after the arrest of a number of authors and members of the Narenji website: “These people are accused of acting against national security through collaborating with foreign networks and designing content for counter-revolutionary sites, with the intention of overthrowing the Islamic Republic.”

The deputy chief prosecutor of Kerman also said: “The main members of the gang were taking their cues from the fugitives[1] .”

An informed source told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran: “According to the prosecution, Pat Shargh Govashir Technology Company had designed websites for those involved with the Green Movement. But they only designed the sites. They only fulfilled their role as web developers. The content of of the sites had nothing to do with them.”

The source continued: “The lawyers [of the accused] said nothing could be found in the case files that would have been propaganda or actions against national security, and it was unclear why the lower court had brought such charges. The lawyers and the defendants themselves in the Appeals Court all appealed and expected that the Appeals Court would reverse the ruling and free the defendants. But today we learned that four people had been sentenced to prison without appeal. We hope that if they were arrested because of the elections, they would be released soon after because they have not made [committed the crimes of which they’re accused].”

The Narenji also released the first Persian version of Steve Jobs’ official biography (authored by Walter Isaacson), with a translation by Nasser Dadgostar, for free, on 3 February, 2014[2] , just three months after the death of the Apple co-founder and CEO.

Earlier, the Electronic Frontiers Foundation (EFF), which supports civil liberties in the digital world and on the Internet, had released a report calling for the release of the Narenji website staff and writers.

 

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