Former Editor-in-Chief of 'Ayandeh' and 'Baztab Emruz' Arrested

The Tasnim news agency reported, citing a judicial source, the arrest of Foad Sadeghi, the former editor-in-chief of the filtered websites 'Ayandeh' and 'Baztab Emruz'. This conservative news agency published the news on Sunday (September 7) based on an unnamed source. While Tasnim referred to Foad Sadeghi as 'one of the media advisors of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani', the IRNA news agency reported that 'an informed source in the office of the Chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council' stated that the arrested individual has no responsibility in the office of Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani. According to Tasnim, Foad Sadeghi was arrested by a judicial authority, and 'the reason for this arrest' has not yet been announced. Foad Sadeghi has a history of being the editor-in-chief of the filtered websites 'Ayandeh' and 'Baztab Emruz' and has been arrested and imprisoned several times before. In June 2013, he was arrested along with several other members of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's election campaign and was imprisoned for a time. In August 2011, Foad Sadeghi, who was one of the managers of the 'Ayandeh News' website, was arrested. At that time, the website had conducted an interview with Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council, and quoted him as saying that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hindered the success of his efforts to resume relations between Iran and the United States. This media activist was also arrested during the 2009 elections and the events that followed, and was imprisoned for a time. Many of the websites managed by Foad Sadeghi have been repeatedly suspended and blocked in recent years, and currently, the activities of many of them have been halted. After many of the virtual media under his management were blocked, in September 2014, he was appointed by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as a media and cultural advisor to the Chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council. At that time, the 'Tasnim' news agency also referred to Sadeghi as one of the 'convicts of the 2009 sedition' and implicitly criticized his appointment.