January 22-2016
Journalist Reyhaneh Tabatabaie surrendered herself at Evin Prison last Tuesday to begin a one-year prison sentence for her many crimes against the state.
Her imprisonment is merely the latest in a string faced by poets, journalists and Reformists in the run-up to the February 26 elections.
Such pre-election crackdowns are nothing new. That are just one more policy the Islamic revolution carried over from the Pahlavi Dynasty.
abatabaie had been banned from journalistic work for two years as a result of her pro-Reformist writings, but she had continued to write on her Facebook page—and Facebook is viewed by the regime as downright subversive.
Tabatabaie’s mother, Shahnaz Siaghi, told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI) that the authorities called their home and ordered her daughter to report to prison after her request for extra time to take care of some personal matters had expired.
Tabatabaie, 35, was arrested November 30, 2014, and a year later, on November 17, 2015, she was sentenced by Judge Abol-Qasem Salavati of the Revolutionary Court to a year in prison and banned from political activities for two years for “propaganda against the state.”
“The propaganda charge was based on her membership in the National [Reformist] Youth Headquarters during the 2013 presidential elections, participation in a youth gathering in Shahr-e Kord, and ‘insulting’ two presidential candidates—[Supreme National Security Council Secretary] Saeed Jalili and [Tehran Mayor] Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf—on her Facebook page,” Tabatabaie’s mother told ICHRI.
“Why should my daughter be punished for criticizing two presidential candidates on her Facebook page? She only expressed her opinion about why she would not vote for them. Why should she be punished for participating in a legal gathering along with many others? For the past two years, she has not been able to do any journalistic job, because she was not allowed to do so,” Siaghi said.
“My daughter is going to prison for unjust reasons. It’s obvious they have summoned her only because of the upcoming elections. They knew Reyhaneh is a political activist and would campaign to get Reformist candidates elected to the Majlis. That’s why they are throwing her into prison,” said Siaghi.
Tabatabaie wrote for the political sections of several Reformist newspapers, such as Sharq, Farhikhtegan and Bahar. She was first arrested December 12, 2010, and held for 36 days in Evin. She was found guilty of charges related to her activities in support of the Green Movement and sentenced by Judge Mohammad Moghisseh to six months. She completed the sentence and was released in November 2014.
While in prison, Tabatabaie was found guilty of the current charges, for which she has now begun serving the one-year sentence.
