Kasra Nouri's name was included in the list of ten journalists "at immediate risk"
The name of Kasra Nouri, Darvish Gonabadi, a prisoner imprisoned in Adelabad Prison in Shiraz, has been included in the list of ten journalists in the world who are in immediate danger.
The list, prepared and published by the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Press Freedom Coalition, places Kasra Nouri's name alongside the names of journalists from Mozambique, Bahrain, Vietnam, Egypt, Brazil, India, Uzbekistan, Belarus, and Russia who are at risk due to their "human rights activities."
The report, citing the website Majzoobin Noor – a website that covers news about the Gonabadi dervishes – and the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, notes that Mr. Nouri was sentenced to 12 years in prison for covering news about the violent dispersal of religious protests in February 2017 and has been transferred from prison to prison many times during his sentence, adding that he has spent a significant amount of time in solitary confinement during his detention. According to the report, the family of the imprisoned Gonabadi dervish is currently unable to contact him.
It should be noted that the journalists whose names were published on this list were subjected to harassment, fines, and long-term imprisonment because they covered attacks on minority communities, anti-government protests, environmental destruction, and the rights of the LGBT community (the rainbow community) in their journalistic activities.
Also, part of the report quotes the Committee to Protect Journalists as saying that 55 percent of imprisoned journalists last year were writing about human rights issues, and that 306 journalists reporting on human rights have been killed around the world since 1992.
Earlier, Voice of America reported that Kasra Nouri, a prisoner who was transferred from Adel Abad Prison in Shiraz to Evin Prison in early February last year, was transferred back to Adel Abad Prison in Shiraz on Friday, March 19, after coordinating prisoners' hunger strikes in Evin, Adel Abad, and Fashafoyeh prisons.
After this transfer, an informed source told VOA that the transfers were based on "Article 513 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which states that a prisoner must serve his sentence in his place of residence, and the first time Kasra was transferred, prison officials told the family that it was clear to them that Kasra resides in Shiraz." This is despite the fact that, according to this source, Mr. Nouri's family resides in Tehran.
Kasra Nouri, who was arrested and transferred to prison in the Golestan 7 incident, was sentenced in August 2018 to 12 years of penal servitude, 74 lashes, two years of exile to Salas Babajani, a two-year travel ban, and a two-year ban on membership in political and social groups and parties, and media activity. Mr. Nouri's final sentence was communicated to him in late March of that year.
Following the Golestan 7th Incident and the attacks by security forces and special forces on Gonabadi dervishes in front of the house of Noor Ali Tabandeh, the former head of the dervishes' lineage, 202 of them were arrested and sentenced to a total of more than 1,080 years in prison. A group of these Gonabadi dervishes, including Kasra Nouri and Mohammad Sharifi-Moghaddam, remain imprisoned.
The United States has repeatedly and on various occasions condemned the violent confrontations and widespread repression of protesters and civil activists, as well as the repeated and persistent violations of the rights of Iranian citizens by the Islamic Republic.
Source: Voice of America
