An Iranian writer has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for replying to a post by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with a single dot, or period.
Hossein Shanbehzadeh, a longtime critic of Iran’s leadership, was active on social media, supporting political prisoners and the removal of mandatory headscarves for women. He was previously imprisoned in 2019 for his online comments insulting Khamenei.
Shanbehadeh was arrested in early June, shortly after he posted the response to Khamenei’s tweet, which showed the Iranian leader with the country’s national volleyball team. His post received far more “likes” than Khamenei’s original tweet, according to Iran International English.
Shanbehzadeh was sentenced to five years for pro-Israel propaganda activity after Iranian authorities alleged that he had been in contact with Israeli intelligence and was arrested when trying to leave the country. Additional sentencing included four years for insulting Islamic sanctities, two years for “spreading lies online” and an additional year for anti-regime propaganda.
Speaking to reformist newspaper Shargh Network, Shanbehzadeh’s lawyer said he would appeal the verdicts.
Shanbehzadeh is just the latest activist to be caught up in the regime’s crackdown on dissenters.
Artists, playwrights, directors and other creatives are now being swept up and handed long prison sentences as Iran’s theocratic leadership grows increasingly concerned about high levels of unrest in the country.
Back in April, Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi was sentenced to death for his antigovernment videos. The charges against Toomaj Salehi stem back to October 2022, when he released rap music and videos supporting widespread protests that swept through Iran after the death and custody of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for not wearing a headscarf. Salehi was charged with “corruption on earth”.
Last year, the decorated Iranian film director, Dariush Mehrjui, who had previously challenged the regime to silence his criticism of its strict censorship laws, was found dead alongside his wife at their home. Both had knife wounds in their necks.
The Iranian regime has also long demonstrated that it is ready, willing and able to threaten the lives of Iranians living in Britain, with agents from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps orchestrating a Europe-wide campaign of harassment, surveillance, kidnap plots and death threats, targeting political activists who protest against the regime.
The Guardian, for instance, has spoken to 15 Iranian campaigners, all of whom have been targeted in similar acts of repression across the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and Sweden. In most of the cases, the activists had been warned by western police or security agencies that Iran is behind credible threats to their life in retribution for their activism on European soil.
Earlier this year, Iran International TV presenter Pouria Zeraati was stabbed outside his home in west London in an apparently targeted attack by three men who then fled the country via Heathrow Airport within hours of the stabbing. Iran International is the most popular news channel in Iran, according to independent surveys, in spite of being banned in the country by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has labelled the organisation as a “terrorist” channel.
