Sentencing of Dozens of Journalists from Voice of America and Other Persian-Language Media Abroad by the Revolutionary Court

A document leaked by the hacking group 'Justice Ali' reveals that journalists and staff from Voice of America and other Persian-language media outside Iran have been sentenced by the Revolutionary Court for 'propaganda against the Islamic Republic.' Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran issued sentences in Bahman 1400 for Aryan Risbaf, Sara Dehghan, Mehdi Flahati, Hamideh Armideh, Niyousha Baqirati, Roozbeh Boulahri, Mahtab Vahidi Rad, Fahimeh Khodrheidari, Payam Yazdian, Arash Sigarachi, and Mehdi Aghazamani, all journalists and collaborators of Voice of America, as well as Behrooz Sooraserafil, a late journalist and former collaborator, and Setareh Derakhshesh, former head of the Persian section of Voice of America. Other prominent media figures include Babak Ghafouri Azar and Vahid Pourastad from Radio Farda, Keyvan Abbasi from Manoto TV, Mahmoud Enayat, Ali Asghar Ramadanpour, Mehdi Parpanji, and Fardad Farahzad from Iran International, as well as Rozita Lotfi and Farnaz Ghazizadeh from BBC Persian. More details about this ruling are not available, but the court was held secretly and naturally without the presence of the mentioned journalists, issuing collective sentences and declaring the case 'closed.' The leaked document from the judiciary regarding the confidential judicial ruling for several journalists outside Iran indicates a long history of harassment against Iranian journalists abroad, with the Islamic Republic resorting to judicial rulings, as well as murder and kidnapping, to force them to cease their activities. These actions have also affected individuals who appear as experts in Persian-language media outside Iran. In one of the latest cases, Navid Jamshidi, a journalist residing in Iran, was arrested in Mehr 1401 after appearing on a special program covering the UN General Assembly on Voice of America. Yolanda Lopez, the then-head of Voice of America, reacted to this action by stating, 'Iran is one of the most repressive countries for journalists. We cannot turn a blind eye to the harassment of journalists by authoritarian regimes in Iran or anywhere else in the world. We stand with our journalist colleagues in Iran because we defend press freedom. The people of Iran deserve unrestricted access to a free press.' Voice of America, with the largest audience among all international media in the United States, provides accurate and impartial news and information through the internet, mobile and social media, radio, and television in 48 languages, including Russian, Persian, and others, to over 326 million weekly audiences worldwide.