Eight Facebook Users Sentenced To 123 Years In Jail In iran

An Iranian court has sentenced eight people to a
combined 123 years in prison for various charges
including insulting the country’s supreme leader on
Facebook. The sentencing is the latest in a recent
crackdown on Internet freedom in the country.

The eight, who were reportedly all Facebook users, were
arrested last year by the Cyber Unit of the
Revolutionary Guard. The Revolutionary Court in Tehran
doled out prison sentences ranging from seven to 20
years for charges of blasphemy, propaganda against the
Iranian state, spreading lies, and insulting Iran’s
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The arrests were
first reported by the opposition news agency Kaleme.
For Iranian human rights experts, the sentences are
unusually harsh and could signal an intention to warn
other Iranian netizens.
“The ruling [...] is clearly intended to spread fear among
Internet users in Iran, and dissuade Iranians from
stepping outside strict state controls on cyberspace,”
wrote the International Campaign for Human Rights in
Iran in a statement .

One of the eight, a British woman named Roya
Saberinejad Nobakht, received a sentence of 20 years in
prison. Her husband said in April that she had been
detained in Iran over comments she had made to friends
on Facebook and in online chat, calling Iran’s
government too controlling and “too Islamic,” as
reported at the time by the Manchester Evening News.
Gissou Nia, the executive director of the The Iran Human
Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC), noted that the
Judge mistakenly applied “a new and controversial
provision” of the nation’s penal code and gave harsher
sentences than would have otherwise been allowed.
“20 years for posting on Facebook? For goodness’ sake.
This is an extraordinarily harsh and disproportionate
punishment,” she told Mashable in an email.
“Unfortunately for her, the case was reviewed by Judge
Moghiseh, a notorious Revolutionary Court judge who has
had a long history of handing down extremely harsh
sentences to activists, lawyers and journalists.”

The British government acknowledged the arrest in a
statement to Mashable, but declined to answer more
specific questions.
“We are aware that a British national has received a
custodial sentence in Iran,” a spokesperson for the U.K.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office said. “We are seeking
to establish the full facts and are following up the case
with the Iranian authorities.”
Little is known about the others arrested, aside from
their names and respective sentences: Amir Golestani, 20
years; Masoud Ghasemkhani, 19 years and 91 days;
Fariborz Kardarfar, 18 years and 91 days; Seyed Masoud
Seyed Talebi, 15 years and one day; Amin Akramipour, 13
years; Mehdi Reyshahri, 11 years; and Naghmeh
Shahisavandi Shirazi, 7 years and 91 days.