Fatemeh Ekhtesari, a practicing obstetrician,
and Mehdi Mousavi, a trained doctor who teaches literature and poetry,
were first arrested in December 2013, months after Rouhani took office.
Earlier this month, Ekhtesari received an 11
½-year prison sentence, while Mousavi got nine years and the
aforementioned lashes on charges ranging from propaganda against the
state to “insulting sanctities,” according to PEN.
,,,
The crackdown represents the “continuation of
the paranoia that the intelligence services and the judiciary has been
having all along,” said Haleh Esfandiari, an Iranian-American dual
national who was detained by Iranian authorities in 2007.
“They are now trying to frighten a lot of
people who are inside Iran: (aid groups), journalists, poets, bloggers,
Internet users. They are trying to warn them that, ‘Make sure you think
twice if a foreigner gets in touch with you and reaches out to you,’ ”
said Esfandiari, a fellow at the Washington-based Wilson Center. “They
are scared of the possibility of a soft revolution.”
Mousavi and Ekhtesari may have been targeted
because their work is known abroad. Both are self-described “postmodern
Ghazal” poets who seek to revive the traditional Persian love sonnet by
applying it to contemporary political and social issues.
Iranian poets sentenced to 99 lashes for shaking hands with members of opposite sex | Toronto Star
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