Journalist Responds to Judiciary Chief’s Invitation: I Returned to Iran and Spent Three Years in Prison

Kianush Sanjari, a journalist who returned to Iran in 2016 after ten years of residence abroad, has responded to an invitation by Iran’s Judiciary Chief for Iranians living outside the country to return home, stating that he was arrested upon his return to Iran and after prolonged “solitary interrogation,” he served three years in Evin Prison based on a court verdict.

In a thread of tweets published on Monday, August 9, he wrote that in addition to the prison sentence, judicial authorities forcibly hospitalized him and he endured “9 instances of being rendered unconscious and forced treatment with electric shock in the hospital.”

Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, Iran’s Judiciary Chief, stated today in a session of the Supreme Judicial Council, claiming that “no” Iranian citizen is prohibited from entry, saying: “Individuals who are concerned that they will be arrested upon crossing the border and sent to prison without their charges being addressed, can return to the country by coordinating with the judicial system without being arrested.”

Mr. Sanjari, referring to these statements, wrote that currently he must also “sign in and out weekly at the prisoners’ monitoring unit in Evin Prison,” has been banned from leaving the country for 5 years, and is deprived of a normal life.

Kianush Sanjari, after leaving Iran in 2007, worked with several Persian-language media outlets such as Voice of America, and after returning to Iran in 2016, was arrested and convicted of charges including “actions against national security” and “propaganda against the system.”

Source: Radio Farda