Saied Mohammadi Moghalani

UPDATE: (10 November 2008) Saied Mohammadi Moghalani was released from prison on 9 November 2008 after posting approximately $52,000 (500 million Rial) bail.

Saied Mohammadi Moghalani is a poet, writer, and newspaper journalist and is editor-in-chief of Yashmaq literary magazine. He also actively publishes in various places. For 5 years he studied at religious seminaries in Qum and Ardabil and thus dressed like a clergyman.

Mohammadi was arrested by intelligence officers, along with 18 others, at an Iftar celebration on 10 September 2008. He and the others were taken to Section 209 of Evin Prison. Until 21 October 2008, he was allowed only one brief telephone call to his family.Mohammadi has been arrested several times in the past few years and has spent several weeks in custody each time. The first time he was arrested was on 12 December 2002, when he attended a memorial service for Professor Mohammad Taqi Zehtabi, an historian and Azeri language teacher. Moghlani and 150 others were in attendance. In May 2004, he was among a group of Azerbaijani activists who were arrested and kept for a short time in prison. In July 2007, while returning from Baku, he was arrested by intelligence forces in Tehran Airport, but released after being interrogated.