Release of Ali Asghar Honarmand, Director of Narenjī Website After 8 Years
Hrana News Agency – Ali Asghar Honarmand, a founding member of the popular website “Narenjī,” announced his release on Wednesday, the 25th of Esfand, by posting a message on Twitter. Mr. Honarmand, who has been freed from prison after 8 years, wrote only without explaining the circumstances of his release: “What we endured cannot be described.”
According to Hrana News Agency, the organ of a coalition of human rights activists in Iran, on Wednesday, the 25th of Esfand 1400, Ali Asghar Honarmand, a founding member of the popular website “Narenjī,” announced his release by posting a message on Twitter.
Mr. Honarmand, who has been freed from prison after 8 years, wrote only without explaining the circumstances of his release: “What we endured cannot be described.”
Previously, some media outlets close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, without providing documentation, had linked the activities of the Narenjī website, which was solely dedicated to publishing news and content in the field of technology, to what they called “security activities.” Meanwhile, yesterday Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori, dual Iranian-British citizens, were released and left Iran.
In December 2013, eleven members and activists of the technical group “Pat Sharq Guashir,” owners of the “Narenjī” website, were arrested by the Kerman Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Seven of those arrested were writers and technical members of the “Narenjī” website team. In June 2014, according to a statement by Yadalollah Mouhammad, the General and Revolutionary Prosecutor of Kerman, these cyber and internet activists were sentenced to 1 to 11 years in prison. Mouhammad had stated at the time in connection with the charges against these individuals that they were “engaged in designing websites and web pages and producing content for media outlets opposed to the system.” Furthermore, according to the claim of the Revolutionary Prosecutor of Kerman, Yadalollah Mouhammad, “these individuals, in a clandestine manner and with information and communication cover, were in contact with satellite networks including BBC Persian and were providing information to media outlets opposed to the system, which were identified by the intelligence of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Kerman.”
In this regard, Mr. Honarmand was initially sentenced to 11 years imprisonment in the preliminary proceedings.
The Narenjī website was created in 2007 with the aim of providing news in the field of information technology and technology. The Narenjī website won the title of best news dissemination website in the third Online Festival of Iranian websites in 2010 and won the award for best Persian blog according to Deutsche Welle in 2012.
Source: Hrana
