Amnesty International: "Iran’s relentless crackdown on artistic expression"

 The latest victim of what Amnesty International calls "Iran’s relentless crackdown on artistic expression" is Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee whose home was "violently" raided on 24 October.

Without due process, Iraee was seized by officials to begin her six year sentence for “insulting Islamic sanctities.” The Iranian regime charged her with the offence because she wrote an unpublished story about the government's utilisation of stoning to death as a punishment. Iraee is now in the notorious Evin prison, while her husband, Arash Sadeghi, a human rights activist and prisoner of conscience, has since started a hunger strike in protest.

Amnesty International said that, not only is Iraee's imprisonment "a terrible injustice and an outrageous assault on freedom of expression," but it also represents a "deeply disturbing display of support for the cruel and inhuman punishment of stoning."

Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, said, “The Iranian authorities must break this cycle of injustice and immediately and unconditionally release Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee. We also urge them to ensure that her conviction is quashed.”

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/10/iran-writer-arrested-in-violent-raid-on-her-house-following-prison-sentence-for-story-about-stoning/