Imprisoned for Producing Music, Yousef Emadi Sentenced to Another Year Behind Bars

An imprisoned music producer has been sentenced to an additional year in prison on new charges brought by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has learned. 

Yousef Emadi was supposed to be released on parole in 2017 after serving one year for producing underground music without a license. His co-defendants, Mehdi and Hossein Rajabian, were granted parole in June 2017.

“The new case against Mr. Emadi is based on his alleged dissemination of information to foreign media while he was in Evin Prison,” a legal expert, who asked not to be named for security reasons, told CHRI.

“Mr. Emadi rejected the charge of ‘propaganda against the state’ and denied contacting reporters outside prison,” added the source. “But the court issued the sentence based on the IRGC’s accusations.”

The one-year prison sentence and two years of exile was issued by Judge Mohammad Moghisseh of Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court in early September, the source told CHRI. Emadi has three months to appeal.

“While Mr. Emadi had only a few months left on his sentence, he was interrogated by the IRGC’s intelligence unit in Evin Prison in August [2017], and after being held incommunicado for a month, we learned about the new charge against him. We don’t know why the IRGC don’t want him to go free,” said the source.

Emadi and the Rajabian brothers were arrested by IRGC intelligence agents at their office in Tehran in October 2013 for running BargMusic, a digital music production and distribution company that operated without an official permit.

In May 2015, Judge Moghisseh sentenced each of them to six years in prison and ordered them to pay 20 million tomans ($6,650 USD) for the charges of “insulting the sacred” and “propaganda against the state.” 

Upon appeal their sentence was reduced to three years in prison each and a three-year suspended prison term.