Several employees of an Iranian technology news site, including bloggers, have been sentenced to long prison terms for alleged links with the BBC.
In an apparent blow to President Hassan Rouhani’s administration trying to improve relations with the West, including Britain, Iran’s justice system has handed down various sentences of up to 11 years against staff of Narenji.
Iranian authorities said this year that some of the employees had participated in projects run by the BBC and in its training courses, and received funding from London. The Guardian understands that at least one of the detainees was among interns on an award-winning journalism development program run by the BBC World Service Trust from 2006 to 2010, called ZigZag.
In December, at least 16 Iranian nationals were arrested by members of the elite Revolutionary Guard forces in the southern province of Kerman for working or having links with Narenji and its associated company, Govashir. Narenji founder Aliasghar Honarmand has been jailed for 11 years, the Guardian has learned.
Of those arrested last year, at least 11 were found guilty – three remain in prison, including Honarmand, Hossein Nozari, who was sentenced to seven years and Ehsan Paknejad, who was sentenced to five years. Others were reportedly released on bail with suspended prison sentences ranging from three months to two and a half years.
“The group was made up of 11 people who designed websites and provided content for anti-state and anti-Iranian media,” Yadollah Movahed of Kerman local justice told reporters, according to the Fars news agency. “The group had direct contact with satellite channels such as BBC Persian.” Narenji staff can appeal convictions.
Movahed also said two people, in separate cases from Narenji’s, had been convicted of collaborating with Britain’s secret intelligence services, MI6, and the Zionist regime (a reference to Israel). One was sentenced to 10 years, and the other to five years, but he did not identify them.
Iranian authorities have a deep distrust of the BBC, suspecting it of being a British spy tool, and have accused dozens of people in recent years of collaborating with the company, in particular its Persian service. Earlier this month, a prominent documentary filmmaker, Mahnaz Mohammadi, was jailed for five years for alleged links to the BBC, which she vehemently denied. BBC Persian has repeatedly stated that it has no employees in Iran.
There is also an internal struggle between Rouhani’s government and extremists over internet freedom. The Iranian president pleaded for better internet access but was prevented by the judiciary and the Revolutionary Guards.
The recent conviction over links to the BBC also coincided with British Foreign Secretary William Hague’s announcement earlier this week that London was opening its embassy in Tehran, years after angry mobs stormed it. by assault.
In May, it emerged that eight people, including a Briton of Iranian descent, had been jailed for their Facebook activities. Roya Saberinejad, a 47-year-old woman from Stockport, was sentenced to 20 years.
