Rights activist on trial in Iran

Iran Focus: Rome, May 27 – Shiva Nazar Ahari, 26, journalist, human rights activist, blogger and reporter of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters was put on trial on 23 May on a charge that could lead to a death sentence.

Iran Focus

Rome, May 27 – Shiva Nazar Ahari, 26, journalist, human rights activist, blogger and reporter of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters was put on trial on 23 May on a charge that could lead to a death sentence. Another member of this committee, Kouhyar Goudarzi, remains imprisoned without trial, the Italian Peace Reporter said.

Amnesty International described the two as “prisoners of conscience, detained for the peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression and association.” Both have been detained since December 2009.

Iran’s state news agencies have accused Ahari of being affiliated with the main opposition group People’s Mojahedin (PMOI). Goudarzi faces the same charge.

Goudarzi told his family last February that he had been put under pressure by Iran’s intelligence service to confess to having links with the PMOI. He has been put in solitary confinement after he had protested the treatment of other prisoners.