Majid Motalebzadeh is a journalist and media consultant for the Voice of Reforms newspaper. He was also an advisor to the secretary general of the Reform Party. He had a previous career as a sportsman. And along with another activist, Seyyed Hadi Kasaeizadeh Mahabadi, Motalebzadeh launched the Anti-Corruption Reporter channel on Telegram.

On October 23, 2017, following an arrest warrant issued on the orders of Jafari Dolatabadi in Branch 9 of the Culture and Media Prosecutor’s Office, Motalebzadeh and his colleague Seyyed Hadi Kasaeizadeh were arrested by the judiciary's Intelligence Protection Forces.

The arrest warrant followed a legal complaint from Valiullah Seif, then governor of the Central Bank of Iran, and a number of other managers from the Sarmayeh Bank.

Motalebzadeh and Kasaeizadeh had published numerous articles on their Telegram channel about the alleged financial corruption of Seif and other managers at the Central Bank.

Motalebzadeh and Kasaeizadeh were released on a bail of 200 million tomans from Evin Prison 10 days after their arrest until the end of the court proceedings against them. Their joint trial was held in Branch 1060 of the Criminal Courts of Tehran in December 2018. Both were sentenced to two years in prison on the charge of “publishing lies with the intention of disturbing the public opinion” and fined four million tomans on the charge of “disclosing confidential secrets.”

According to the court’s verdict, which was issued on May 32, 2020, Branch 46 of the Court of Appeals of Tehran reduced the lower court’s sentence to one year in prison and a monetary fine of 4 million tomans.

The sentence against Majid Motalebzadeh has not yet been enforced.