Aliasghar Honarmand is an Iranian journalist. He is the founder of the gadget news website Narenji.[1]
He is currently serving an 11-year jail sentence in Iran, having been arrested in December 2013 and tried by the Iranian government, allegedly for espionage against the state. More than a dozen members of the Narenji team were arrested alongside Honarmand. Some remain in jail, serving sentences of between two and seven years. Their arrest was televised by Iranian state TV.[2]
They were accused of trying to orchestrate a '...soft overthrow' of the Iranian regime", having attended training courses hosted by the BBC. The Iranian state has been known to suspect the BBC of being a tool for UK espionage in the region, a claim the BBC denies.[3] Honarmand unsuccessfully appealed his sentence in 2015.[4]
References
edit- ^ Dehghan, Saeed Kamali (2014-07-10). "Why isn't the BBC protesting about Aliasghar Honarmand's jailing in Iran?". The Guardian. Retrieved 2019-09-29.
- ^ O'Brien, Danny (2014-04-23). "How Iran's Gadget Bloggers Became Victims of the Revolutionary Guard". Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved 2019-06-04.
- ^ Dehghan, Saeed Kamali (2014-07-10). "Why isn't the BBC protesting about Aliasghar Honarmand's jailing in Iran? | Saeed Kamali Dehghan". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-06-04.
- ^ main (2015-08-20). "Ali Asghar Honarmand's Case in the Court of Appeal". Hrana - News Agency. Retrieved 2019-06-05.