Iranian journalist Sarvenaz Ahmadi is serving a six-year sentence in Tehran’s Evin prison, on an anti-state conviction for her social media coverage of nationwide anti-state protests that began in September 2022.
Ahmadi, a freelance journalist, covers labor union issues, politics, and forced child labor for newspapers including the semi-independent social and political news website Meidaan. She has also written for the state-run economic SMT newspaper.
Iranian security forces arrested Ahmadi and her husband, journalist Kamiar Farkour, on May 10, 2023 from a friend’s house in Tehran and took them to Evin prison to begin serving prison sentences that had been issued in January, the exile-run RadioZamaneh reported.
Ahmadi covered the demonstrations on her personal account on X and was immediately arrested, according to a source with knowledge of the arrest who spoke on the condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal. Her account later disappeared from the social media platform.
She was released and then rearrested in November 2022, along with her husband. Security forces raided their home, confiscated their personal devices, and took them to an undisclosed location, according to the source. The couple was released on bail on December 7, 2022, the source told CPJ.
Ahmadi and Fakour were sentenced on January 3, 2023 in Branch 15 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court by Judge Abolqasem Salavati, according to the exile-run Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).
Ahmadi was sentenced to six years for “spreading propaganda against the system” and “colluding against the national security,” while Fakour was sentenced to one year on the same charges. Their lawyers were prevented from attending the sentencing trial. They were not taken into custody to serve their sentences until May 2023.
For 20 days in September 2024, Ahmadi was on a hunger strike and refused to take her medications for chronic panic attacks and epileptic seizures in protest of being denied medical furlough and conditional early release, according to news reports.
CPJ emailed Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York in late 2024 for comment on the case of Ahmadi and other imprisoned Iranian journalists but received no response.