“I believe that blogging is like speaking from the pulpit,” says journalist and religious commentator Ali-Ashraf Fathi, who was arrested for propaganda against the regime, misleading the public and promoting the views of an “anti-Iranian” ayatollah in 2010 and 2011.
Name: Ali-Ashraf Fathi
Born: 1981, Zanjan, Iran
Career: Blogger and journalist who has written about religion and the clergy for numerous publications, including Etemad-e Melli, Jahan-e Eghtesad, Mehr Nameh and Iran-Dokht.
Charges: Propaganda against the regime, misleading the public and promoting the views of Ayatollah Montazeri.
Ali-Ashraf Fathi began his religious studies in 1999 when he enrolled in Qom Seminary. He graduated with a degree in Islamic history from Beheshti University and contributed reformist publication, writing about religion and the clergy.
He was first arrested in January 2010 at a memorial service for Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri. Montazeri had once been acknowledged at the likely successor to Ayatollah Khamenei, but after he publicly opposed repressive government policies in 1989, the two fell out and Montazeri was widely discredited among Iran’s leaders.
Fathi was detained at the Intelligence Department in Qom for eight days and later released on bail. His charges were never publicly announced but, according to Fathi’s blog Tourjan, they included propaganda against the regime, misleading the public and promoting the views of Ayatollah Montazeri.
In March 2011, Fathi was again summoned to Qom’s Intelligence Department and interrogated for a number of hours about his blogs. General Mehdi Tavakoli, the commander of Qom security forces, denied that his arrest had anything to do with his blogs. Because Fathi was a seminary student, his case was referred to Qom’s Special Tribunal for Clergy following his arrest.
“I believe that blogging is like speaking from the pulpit,” he said a week before his arrest during an interview with the blog Talabeh, which is regularly read by seminary students. “The difference is that the pulpit is one-sided, whereas blogging moves in both directions. With blogging I am not the sole speaker. For me, such a role is a religious duty.”
Fathi is continuing his academic career, and is currently completing advanced level studies in religion.
This is part of IranWire’s series Crime: Journalism, a portfolio on the legal and political persecution of Iranian journalists and bloggers, published in both Persian and English.
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