Journalist Put on Trial for Propaganda Against State

Hossein Nouraninejad (left) and his wife.

The lawyer representing Hossein Nouraninejad, the Iranian journalist and member of the now-banned reformist political party the Participation Front, told ILNA News Agency that his client was put on trial on June 9, 2014, at Branch 15 of Tehran Revolutionary Court under Judge Salavati.

Hossein Nouraninejad was charged with “propaganda against the regime” and “collusion and assembly against national security” according to his lawyer, but no evidence of conduct that would warrant these charges was offered in court.

Hossein Nouraninejad’s lawyer, Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaee, told ILNA that he expects a ruling in the case by next week and expressed hope that his client would be acquitted of the charges.

Security agents arrested Hossein Nouraninejad at his home on April 21, 2014, and transferred him to the IRGC’s Ward 2-A at Evin Prison. Nouraninejad had been arrested once before in the aftermath of the disputed 2009 presidential election on September 17, 2009, and was sentenced to one year in prison on charges of “propaganda against the regime.” He was released in September 2010 after completing his prison term, and left Iran with his wife for Australia where he continued his education. In March 2014, Hossein Nouraninejad returned to Iran in order to be with his wife who had returned to the country earlier to give birth to their child.

The judicial case against Hossein Nouraninejad was created in his absence during the time he was in Australia. A source close to Nouraninejad’s case told the Campaign in May 2014 that Nouraninejad did not engage in any political activities in Australia, and that the only thing he did was to give interviews to the media before and after the 2013 presidential election of Hassan Rouhani whom he supported in the race.

Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi, the Spokesperson for the Iranian Judiciary, said last April that the Iranian Judiciary had put a group of individuals who had fled abroad on trial in absentia in relation to the 2009 presidential election, which the Iranian authorities refer to as “the 2009 sedition.” Ejehi provided no more details or names of the individuals who had been put on trial. On June 9, however, Ejehi announced  that 27 suspects of the “2009 sedition” are being prosecuted now. “Three to four cases have been forwarded for sentence enforcement, seven to eight cases are moving through the enforcement process, and indictments have been issued for 14 individuals in the case,” said Mohseni Ejehi.