Judiciary Jails Ahmadinejad Press Allies

Iran’s judiciary has handed down a 91-day prison sentence to Ali Akbar Javanfekr, former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s press advisor. Javanfekr’s lawyer Ghahraman Shojaei stated that his client will appeal the verdict.

Javanfekr and three other members of Iran’s Press Institute — Abdolreza Soltani, Saeed Yusefipour and Hasan Ghasemi — were charged with “disobeying judiciary and police agents.” The charges stemmed from events that took place at the offices of the newspaper Iran in autumn 2011. At the time, Javanfekr was the chief executive of the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), the newspaper’s publisher. After he oversaw the publication of a special supplement called Khatoon (“The Lady”) about women in Iran, Tehran’s prosecutor accused him of "publishing materials contrary to Islamic principles” and filed an official complaint against him. Among other things, one article had challenged the notion that black chadors were rooted in Persian culture, arguing instead that the practice of wearing solid black chadors was “imported from the West.”

The court sentenced Javanfekr to one year in prison and banned him from journalism for three years. At the time, the verdict was kept from the public; the news was not made available to or reported by the media. On November 20, 2011 in an interview with the newspaper Etemad, Javanfekr vigorously defended his decision to publish the supplement for women readers, and harshly criticized the way the judiciary had treated him. After the publication of the interview, Etemad was forced to suspend publication for a day and the previous verdict against Javanfekr was officially announced.

The next day, on November 21, Javanfekr gave a press conference at the offices of Iran newspaper, defending his statements in Etemad. Later that day, agents working for Tehran’s prosecutor were dispatched to arrest him. Journalists present clashed with the agents, who then used tear gas against the journalists and detained 39 of the paper’s employees for several hours.

Media worker Alireza Soltani — who was also given a 91-day prison sentence, claimed agents had used a taser against him. He suffered injuries to his neck and had to undergo hospital treatment. Agents also arrested Saeed Yusefipour, then political editor of Iran newspaper, and Hasan Ghasemi, a member of the board of directors of Iran Press Institute.

In the end, agents did not detain Javanfekr on November 21. Instead, the judiciary opened a new case against him, this time charging him with insulting the supreme leader. On December 16, 2011, the court sentenced him to one year in prison and banned him from social, political and media activities for five years.

Finally, on September 26, 2012, while Ahmadinejad was out of the country addressing the UN’s General Assembly, agents placed Javanfekr under arrest.

Javanfekr appealed against both verdicts. His appeal was partially successful in the Khatoon case, and his sentence was reduced to six months. But the appeals court upheld the verdict linked to insulting the supreme leader and the editor spent a year and a half in prison. He was released in early 2014.

The Row that Never Ended

Ahmadinejad was furious about the arrest and incarceration of his press advisor. Upon his return from New York in autumn 2012, he criticized the judiciary and announced that his intention to visit Javanfekr at Evin Prison. The head of the Iranian judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, was in turn enraged by Ahmadinejad’s demands and criticisms, and stated so publicly. With this, a new cycle of tension between Larijani and Ahmadinejad was underway.

Since then, tensions between the former president and judiciary officials have continued. Iran’s judiciary has been determined to prosecute Javanfekr to the full extent of the law, an insistence that has its roots Ahmadinejad’s constant clashes with judicial authorities, and particularly with Larijani.

Javanfekr and the other two journalists, Saeed Yusefipour and Hasan Ghasemi, are among some of Ahmadinejad’s most loyal supporters. They are also firm supporters of Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, who worked as Ahmadinejad’s chief of staff and later was appointed First Vice President. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei ordered the removal of Mashaei from office on July 18, 2009 after Mashaei repeatedly spoke about his non-conformist views in public.

In recent months, Ali Akbar Javanfekr had been more visible in the media, giving regular interviews to the website Dolat-e Bahar, which reflects the views of Ahmadinejad’s supporters. In the interviews, Javanfekr has defended the former president.

The recent verdict against Javanfekr and his allies is a new chapter in the row between Ahmadinejad and the judiciary. With it, Iran’s judicial authorities have sent a clear message to Ahmadinejad supporters: they will not tolerate their media efforts and activities.

Last winter, the Ahmadinejad-friendly website Dolat-e Bahar reported that charges against the former president and his allies had been dropped, and their cases were now closed. But the announcement this week of jail terms reveal this assumption to be untrue — and the target recipient is Ahmadinejad. Despite the former president’s plans to return to politics, the judiciary is determined to not let it happen. And the cases against his former press aide and colleagues are not isolated: the judiciary could revive dozens of other cases against Ahmadinejad’s allies, and no doubt will do so at a time most convenient for it — and most damaging for the former president.  for it to push its agenda against him. Whatever the media and fellow politicians might think about Ahmadinejad, Iran’s powerful judiciary has other ideas.