Journalist Afarin Chitsaz Released Pending Appeal

Afarin Chitsaz, the Iranian journalist recently sentenced to 10 years in prison, has been released on bail.

According to the Iranian news website Zeitoons, she was released on Wednesday, July 6, on a bail of one billion tomans (about $325,000) pending the appeals court decision.

Revolutionary Guards arrested Chitsaz, a columnist for the Rouhani government’s official newspaper Iran, in early November 2015 along with three other journalists, Ehsan Mazandarani, Saman Safarzaei and Isa Saharkhiz. They were all accused of being members of an “infiltration network” accused of colluding with hostile Western governments.

A month after their arrest, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a senior cleric and a hardline member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, claimed the journalists had “confessed” to collaborating with foreign agencies to carry out spying activities in Iran.

In April 2016, Chitsaz was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of “gathering and colluding against national security” and “collaborating with foreign governments.”

But her mother, Marayam Azadpour, said Chitsaz’s confessions were false and obtained under duress. 

“My daughter was beaten with a bottle of water to make her confess while she was blindfolded,” Azadpour told BBC Persian on April 29, after six months of silence.

She said her daughter was beaten so badly she has developed tachycardia – an abnormally rapid heart rate.

“She was kept in a solitary confinement cell for six months, and her mental health is not good. She takes two anxiety pills every day,” Azadpour said.

Two of the other journalists, Ehsan Mazandarani and Saman Safarzaei, were sentenced to seven and five years’ imprisonment. A fifth Iranian, Davoud Asadi, who was also arrested in early November, was given a five-year prison sentence. Isa Saharkhiz’s fate is still unclear.