Six Years Behind Bars for One Interview

Emadeddin Baghi was sentenced to a prison term of six years yesterday for conducting an interview as he was simultaneously standing trial on a charge of publishing confidential information. In other news, a prosecutor sought the death penalty in the case of blogger Hossein Derakhshan, while the relatives of Abdolreza Ghanbari, an imprisoned teacher who has been sentenced to death, described Ghanbari’s condition as severe in an interview with Rooz.

Emadeddin Baghi stood trial at branch 1057 of Tehran’s general court yesterday while, according to his official website, he has been interrogated and questioned more than 85 times, is already sentenced to 18.5 years of imprisonment and has been banned from engaging in journalist or civic activism for 5 years.

While Baghi was being tried at branch 1057 of the general court, branch 26 of the revolutionary court sentenced him to imprisonment for 6 years on a separate charge of conducting an interview with the late dissident ayatollah Montazeri.

Emadeddin Baghi has been imprisoned three times since 2000, for a total of 4.5 years.

Meanwhile, death row political prisoner Abdolreza Ghanbari is in severe condition because of internal bleeding.

According to sources inside the Evin Prison, prison officials ignore Ghanbari despite his continuous cries for help and nightly pleas and refuse to provide him with medical assistance.

Ghanbari was arrested following the Ashoura day protests and was sentenced by Judge Salavati of branch 15 of the revolutionary court to death for alleged contacts with the armed opposition group Mojahedin Khalq Orgnization.

Ghanbari, who is a teacher, dismisses the allegation as baseless. His wife, also a teacher, has been repeatedly summoned to the ministry of intelligence and threatened with losing her job. According to people close to Ghanbari, his daughter, Sahel Ghanbari, who knows about her father’s death verdict, is in an unstable emotional condition.

Mr. Ghanbari’s family has been heavily pressured by the ministry of intelligence not to publicly protest his condition.

In related news, the relatives of Hossein Derakhshan, the well-known Iranian blogger who has been behind bars since last fall, told Rooz that the prosecutor has called for the death penalty in his case.

Rooz has learned from several political prisoners recently released form the Evin Prison that Hossein Derakhshan is being held at the Islamic Passdaran Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) notorious Ward A and is not in good emotional condition.

More than a year ago, in an open letter Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for fair trials for the Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi and Hossein Derakhshan. Roxana Saberi was subsequently released and returned to America, while Hossein Derakhshan’s continued detention has raised the public’s concern about his fate.

The website radiozamaaneh published a letter yesterday describing Hossein Derakhshan’s condition as severe and claiming that he is a victim of internal fighting between the judiciary, the administration and the IRGC.