Rahman Ghahremanpour, born in 1974, holds a BA in physics from Orumiyeh University and an MA and Ph.D. in political science from Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran. He was the director of the Disarmament Research Group at the Centre for Strategic Research for the Expediency Discernment Council that has supervisory power over all branches of government and reports solely to the Supreme Leader. He regularly wrote and gave interviews about the Iranian nuclear program to newspapers and websites.

When he was arrested on June 1st 2011, he was also the editor-in-chief of the monthly Hamshahri Diplomatic and became the managing editor of the Tehran-e Emrouz newspaper. He was arrested because he wrote critical articles on the Iranian nuclear policies under then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Agents of the Intelligence Ministry took him to Ward 209 of Evin Prison where he spent 380 days in solitary confinement before being transferred to Ward 350. During this time, he was regularly beaten and so suffered from arthritis in his back and his eyesight deteriorated. In 2013, he was at last granted a medical furlough but this was taken away when prison officials discovered he had written a letter to President Hassan Rouhani about his charges being trumped up and about him being tortured. It was only after a thousand days in detention that he was allowed out for medical treatment.

Rahman Ghahremanpour was 25 when he joined the research arm of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team in 2001 and only five years after that was he appointed as the director of the Disarmament Research Group in the Centre for Strategic Research. News sites speculated after his arrest that the authorities were worried he would disclose certain nuclear information they wanted to remain secret. He was tried at Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court presided by Judge Salavati who sentenced him to three years in prison on charges of spying and revealing secrets about Iranian domestic affairs in an interview with a Turkish reporter. On April 17th 2014, agents dressed in civilian clothing raided Ward 350 of Evin Prison and savagely beat the prisoners so Ghahremanpour and 28 other political prisoners wrote a letter to President Rouhani detailing the ordeal. During his two years at Ward 350, Ghahremanpour gave other prisoners lectures on Middle Eastern affairs, the Arab Spring, democracy, Iranian foreign policy and presidential elections in the U.S. and in Iran. He also wrote and/or translated five books in that time. He was freed on June 20th 2014, having served his three-year sentence.