Iranian political prisoner Soheil Arabi was taken into arraignment through a video conference on Monday for a new case opened against him in prison.
During the session, which was held on Monday, May 25, 2021, via video conference by Branch 3 of the Evin Prosecutor’s Office, Mr. Arabi was charged with “propaganda activities against the regime and disturbing public opinion,” for a new case opened against him in prison.
Examples of these accusations include preparing several reports on the poor condition of the Greater Tehran Penitentiary, criticizing the conduct of prison authorities especially the prison’s assistance prosecutor overseeing political prisoners, going on a hunger strike to protest depriving political prisoners of medical treatment, and issuing several statements in support of the November 1998 protests. Arabi has denied the allegations.
On 18 September, prisoner Arabi was taken to the prison director’s office, where he was interrogated and was told that, in reprisal for revealing the prison’s condition, “we are going to send you to an even worse place than this one.”
On October 20, 2020, after 33 days in solitary confinement, he informed his family in a phone call that he had been transferred to the IRGC Intelligence Detention Center, Ward 2A of Evin Prison.
He was subsequently transferred to one of the solitary confinement cells of Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj (known as the Suite) on Sunday, November 8, 2020, after the end of the interrogations. He was then transferred to the general ward of this prison after nine days.
Iranian political prisoner Soheil Arabi had previously been arraigned on other charges through a video conference by Branch 8 of the Shahrari Prosecutor’s Office on December 23, 2020, but he was eventually acquitted of the charges.
Soheil Arabi had been serving a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence since 2013 for criticizing the Islamic Republic on Facebook. In October 2018 he was sentenced to three more years behind bars—increasing his total term to 10 years—for engaging in peaceful activism inside the Greater Tehran Penitentiary where he was being held that time.
