Soheil Arabi's mother is concerned about her son's condition: I know something bad has happened to Soheil.
Soheil Arabi, a civil rights activist imprisoned in Iran, received a new three-year prison sentence and exile in October of this year, after serving a seven-year prison sentence since 2013. His relatives, including his mother, are unaware of the prisoner's condition, and human rights and civil rights activists continue to protest the sentence given to Soheil Arabi.
Farangis Mazloum, the mother of Sohail Arabi, said in an interview with Voice of America about the lack of information about her son's condition: "I haven't met with Sohail for about three weeks and I don't know what his condition is, but one of the prisoners informed me that Sohail has been taken back to quarantine."
Soheil Arabi's mother, who goes to Evin Prison every week to visit her son, has not been allowed to visit her son in recent weeks, while Evin Prison officials have been prohibiting her from visiting her son using various excuses.
Ms. Mazloum said: "The last time I went to court, the judge overseeing the prisoners assured me that I would be able to see my son this time, but Evin Prison still did not allow me to visit, and the prison officials stated that they had sent Soheil to court, even though my son's sentence had been given to his lawyer and there was no need to take him to court."
Expressing concern about his son's condition, he said that he has gained so much experience over the years that he knows that every time something bad happens to Sohail, they try to hide it from him so that the news doesn't leak to the media.
Soheil Arabi, a photographer, blogger, and civil activist who was arrested by the Revolutionary Guards in December 2013 and sentenced to death on charges of "insulting the Prophet and insulting sacred places," had his death sentence overturned in July 2015 by a branch of the Supreme Court.
After the trial was retried and the verdict was overturned, he was sentenced to 7 and a half years in prison, but in October of this year, in addition to his previous conviction, he was sentenced again to 3 years of penal servitude, exile, and forced residence in Borazjan by the ruling of Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court, headed by Judge Ahmadzadeh, the head of this branch.
A group of political and civil activists, as well as the families of the martyrs and political prisoners, issued a statement in support of Soheil Arabi in September of this year.
In 2017, Reporters Without Borders also awarded the "Citizen Journalist" award to Soheil Arabi, an imprisoned Iranian photographer and blogger.
Previously, Ed Royce, chairman of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote in an article that the conviction of Sohail Arabi is a symbol of the suppression of freedom of expression on the Internet.
Source: Voice of America
