4 social media activists and 2 members of underground music bands have been arrested in Tehran and Kerman.
According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), Hamed Ghanbari, Mahmoud Musavi, Shayan Akbarpour and Amir Bensaidi have been arrested on Sunday May 31st in Tehran and Ehsanollah Amuzegar and Arash Hallaj as well on Monday June 1st in Kerman.
Mr. Musavi and Mr. Akbarpour were the administrators of a Facebook page about the social and religious situation in Iran.
Mr. Amuzegar and Mr. Hallaj were the members of an underground music band and were beaten at the time of being arrested. The agents have also broken their musical instruments.
There is no information about the whereabouts of the detainees yet.
On Monday, June 8th, Gholamhossain Mohseni Ejei, the spokesperson of Iranian Judiciary had told that, “Some who were keeping on releasing illegal statements in the social media have been arrested.” “The number of detainees may increase or decrease in coming days” he said and claimed that “the detainees have confessed that they had antirevolutionary motivations.”
On the other hand, there is no information about Rauf Shahbazi, student of Hamedan University who was arrested and transferred to Hamedan prison 3 weeks ago. He has been arrested on charge of “insulting Khomeini in the social media” and has been sentenced by branch number 1 of the Revolutionary Court of Hamedan to 2 years in prison.
According to Reports without Borders, Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the 5 biggest prisons of media activists in the world. Iran is the 173rd country in the issue of press freedom in the world and the pressures on bloggers and cyber activists has been increasing recently.
