Press freedom violations recounted in real time January 2018

Photographer Soheil Arabi badly beaten during prison transfer

February 4, 2018 - Reporters Without Borders is concerned about the physical condition of Soheil Arabi, an imprisoned photographer who was awarded the RSF Press Freedom Prize in the citizen-journalist category last November. After beginning a hunger strike in Tehran’s Evin prison on 25 January, he was transferred to Greater Tehran Prison, on the south side of the capital, four days later.
He reported to his mother on 30 January that he was badly beaten by guards at the time of his transfer. “Thirteen people grabbed me and beat me, but I am continuing my hunger strike,” he said. He began the hunger strike to protest against the transfer of two women political prisoners to a prison for ordinary inmates.
Arabi has been in prison since December 2013. After his arrest, he was mistreated and subjected to solitary confinement for two months to force him to confess to involvement in creating a Facebook network that “blasphemed” Islam and criticized the government. A long judicial saga ensued in which he was initially sentenced to three years in prison, 30 lashes and a heavy fine. A few months later, he was retried and sentenced to death, but the death sentence was eventually overturned and he was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison instead