Saleh Tamouli Tarafi, Crime: Journalism

Social activist Saleh Tamouli Tarafi was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for using Facebook to promote “propaganda against the regime”. Since his arrest on July 9, 2014, the government has provided his family with no information as to his whereabouts.

Name: Saleh Tamouli Tarafi 

Career: Citizen Journalist, internet activist, using Facebook and other social networks to report on current affairs and news.

Charges: Propaganda against the regime, communication with individuals outside the country and insulting public officials.

Saleh Tamouli Tarafi, 33, is a social activist who lives in Ahvaz, the capital of the Khuzestan province. He was arrested on April 11, 2013 for his postings on Facebook and taken to Karun Prison. For two months he was interrogated and pressured to sign a confession; he was eventually released on bail.

During his trial at the Revolutionary Court, he was charged with “propaganda against the regime by his use of Facebook”, activities against the Islamic Republic through social networks, using Facebook to communicate with people outside Iran, publishing reports about Syria and the Arab world on the internet and writing subversive poems and other material in Arabic. He was sentenced to three years in prison and a monetary fine.

He appealed but the appeals court upheld the verdict in April this year. On July 9, he was summoned to the Intelligence Bureau of Ahvaz where he was arrested. No information has been released about him or his whereabouts.

For more information, visit Journalism is Not a Crime, documenting cases of jailed journalists in Iran.

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.

Please contact [email protected] with comments, updates or further information about cases. 

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Isa Saharkhiz

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Mojtaba Pourmohsen

Mahsa Jozeini