Free Iranian Journalist Nasour Naghipour, Serving Seven Year Prison Sentence

UPDATE MARCH 26, 2013: NASOUR NAGHIPOUR DENIED MEDICAL FURLOUGH - HE HAS GUM DISEASE AND IS UNABLE TO EAT.

HRANA News Agency – As another way of repressions and pressures on political prisoners, the officials of Evin prison refused to give medical furlough to Nasour Naghipoor because Nasour was not wearing prison’s clothes.

According to a report by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), this political prisoner is suffering of teeth and gums disease who is unable to eat since a few months ago because of lack of vitamins.
His request for medical furlough was granted but because he refused to wear prison’s clothes while he was going to be transferred to hospital the prison officials prevented his transferring to hospital.

Recently his medical furlough request was refused even by providing his father’s house title deed as the bail.

This journalist was summoned to prosecutor’s office of Evin prison on July 10th of 2012 in terms of detention verdict enforcement and since that time he is in ward 350 of the prison.

Nasour Naghipoor was sentenced to seven years imprisonment by Judge Pir Abbas in branch 26 of Tehran revolutionary court on charge of membership in Human Rights Activists in Iran group and propaganda against regime. Also his verdict was confirmed by the provincial appealed.

Nasour Naghipoor is the student of IT and scholar of philosophy and political thoughts who was administrating a website of Farsi articles about humanitarian science.

Naghipoor was fired off from his job last year because of his activities and he is one of the designers of HRANA website.
http://www.en-hrana.org/medical-furlough-of-one-of-hrana-designers-refused

UPDATE, NOVEMBER 11, 2012:

The retrial request of Nasour Naghipour, jailed journalist and cyber activist was rejected by prison’s authorities.

According to a report by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), after passing 4 months, prison authorities has seized the retrial request of Nasour Naghipour, and the efforts of his family have remained with no result.

Following the Appeals Court’s upholding of the seven years in prison sentence of journalist Nasour Naghipour, he was summoned on July 9th by the Magistrate in Evin prison, where he was arrested and transferred to Ward 350, to start serving his prison term.

Nasour Naghipour who was not a member of the Human Rights Activists Agency in Iran, but was arrested by IRGC’s Intelligence Corps on March 2, 2010 and incarcerated in Ward 2-A of Evin prison, on the charges of designing the website of the Human Rights Activists News Agency.

Journalist and human rights activist Nasour Naghipour was tried and sentenced to seven years in prison, in Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court, presided by Judge Pirabbasi, on the charges of membership in the Human Rights Activists Agency in Iran and propaganda against the regime. His sentence was upheld by the Appeals Court.

29-year-old Nasour Naghipour, a university student majoring in Information Technology and a researcher in philosophy and political ideologies, was managing a website archiving articles written in Farsi on the field of Humanities.

After 110 days of incarceration in solitary confinement in Ward 2-A of Evin prison, this journalist and human rights activist was released on bail on June 20, 2010.

Naghipour, one of the more well known-figures in designing Farsi websites, had a major role in developing quality content in cyberspace and the blogosphere.

He was also fired at his job due to his activities.

In the early morning hours of March 2, 2010, Iranian security forces launched a wave of arrests of human rights activists in Iran.

Given the unprecedented nature of this organized and orchestrated mass arrests, with it’s axis the Human Rights Activists Agency, was in itself unique and unprecedented.

This wave of mass arrests of the human rights activists in Iran resulted in 46 arrests, more than a cumulative of 67 years and 3 months prison sentences, 24 undecided cases and 10 people indicted and under warrant for arrest.

Also, a large number of people were summoned and interrogated, monetary fines in the millions were issued, large number of activists were fired from their jobs, 6 websites were damaged and 33 sites were blocked and removed from the web.

2011--Iranian journalist and blogger Nasour Naghipour has been convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison for membership in the “Human Rights Activists in Iran” and anti-regime propaganda. However he has never been a member of the aforementioned group and has strongly denied membership in the group.

A Qazvin based journalist, Naghipour, who has no history of political activism, is the author of numerous articles on literary and cultural matters that were published on his blog “Nasour”.

According to RAHANA, he was arrested on March 2, 2009 by the cyber unit of IRGC; one of many arrests carried out extra-judicially on that day across the country. He was released on a $100,000 bail after 110 days of detention, during which time he was isolated from family and lawyers alike and reportedly under great pressure from interrogators. His lawyers, have objected to the verdict and are hoping that the sentence will be reduced.