Journalism is Not a Crime: Babak Aghazadeh

Citizen journalists, writers, activists and artists are routinely arrested and jailed in Iran for the simple crime of speaking out. Although some of the more dramatic stories occasionally hit the headlines, we rarely hear about these people's detentions or see their names published in English. IranWire's sister project Journalism is Not a Crime aims to change that, highlighting their stories and work, until the day when none of us know the names of journalists behind bars in Iran — because they have all been set free.

 

Babak Aghazadeh [Freed]

Professional Record:

Street sweeper and manager of the Our City, Our Home Telegram channel

 

Charged with:

Unknown

 

Court’s Ruling:

Unknown

 

Date of Birth:

1977

 

Place of Birth:

Qorijan Village, in the suburbs of Malekan, Eastern Azerbaijan Province

 

Current Status:

Freed

 

Babak Aghazadeh is the manager of the Telegram channel Our City, Our Home and a street sweeper in the Malekan municipality in Iran’s Eastern Azerbaijan province. (The province has an active Turkish-Azerbaijani nationalist movement.) On December 16, 2019, according to a report by the HRA News Agency, Aghazadeh was arrested by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence as he was sweeping streets in Malekan in the evening. He was transferred to an unknown location.

Aghazadeh was born in 1977 and raised in the village of Qorijan, Malekan. He has a diploma and has been working for the city of Malekan for 20 years.

He was transferred to Maragheh Prison for several hours, on December 17, where agents registered him in the prison’s electronic administrative system. They then took Aghazadeh to another unknown location.

Aghazadeh’s family have been unable to have any contact with him since the arrest. Worried about Aghazadeh’s health, the family tried to contact the Revolutionary Guards intelligence division on a number of occasions; their attempts were unsuccessful. Aghazadeh had suffered from kidney failure and it was not clear whether he had received medical attention.

It was also unclear on what charges Aghazadeh had been arrested. But the Malekan Revolutionary Guards intelligence division had taken a video of Aghazadeh’s father, Nasr Aghazadeh, in which he was forced to speak out against Turkish Azerbaijani activists. This was despite the fact that, according to his friends, Babak Aghazadeh was not known as a supporter of Turkish Azerbiajani nationalism.

In the video, which was published online, Nasr Aghazadeh, despite appearing anxious and uneasy, denies rumours of his son’s death. He also spoke out against Azerbaijani activists in Malekan. Nasr Aghazadeh says in the video that “With the help of the officials of the holy Islamic Republic of Iran, I was able to call my son last night. He is fine and there is nothing to worry about. We are all subjects of the holy Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Prior to his arrest, Babak Aghazadeh managed a Telegram channel called Our City, Our Home, which at its peak had more than 3,000 followers. On the Telegram channel he posted messages about the environment, nature, health issues and nutrition as well as sharing educational links and content. The channel was set up in May 2019.

The channel’s first post was about the difficulties of working as a street sweeper. The last post, made the same day as Aghazadeh’s arrest, was about the dangers of plastic usage and waste.