Hossein Shanbehzadeh is an Iranian writer and editor who has gained notoriety—and thousands of followers—on social media for his often satirical messages about the Iranian regime and even its highest representative: the supreme leader. On May 2, the official account of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei published a message on the social network a missing punctuation mark at the end of the supreme leader’s sentence. The writer and activist’s message soon went viral and obtained 17,000 likes, while Khamenei’s had only collected 7,700. That tweet from the supreme leader was later deleted. The Iranian activist was detained this Tuesday in Ardabil, about 600 kilometers northwest of Tehran, after his X account was deleted. The Tasnim agency, linked to the parallel army of the Revolutionary Guard, confirmed this Wednesday the arrest and accused him of “spying for Israel”, a charge that could even carry the death penalty.
Iranian diaspora media, such as IranWire, They consider that this message of the point triggered the arrest and accusation against this activist who, already in 2023, had been imprisoned for allegedly insulting the supreme leader. The tweet may seem banal, but ultimately it is a correction and represents “amending the record” of a supreme leader who, in official discourse, presents himself as practically infallible, emphasizes Spanish-Iranian activist Ryma Sheermohammadi.
Another of those means, Iran Internationall, assures that, before the closure of the writer’s X account, someone published in it a screenshot of an alleged dialogue by the activist in which he allegedly showed himself willing to accept money from an unidentified person who offered it to him. The activist’s brother has denied that Shanbehzadeh is the author – he claims that the person who wrote those messages is a person with little knowledge of Persian. Furthermore, in the messages of the person supposedly chatting with the writer, a telephone number appears that, according to this Iranian exile media, belongs to the Ardabil police. Iran InternationalHe maintains that these messages are false evidence intended to justify the accusation of spying for Israel.
These media emphasize that the impact and the thousands of “likes” that Shanbehzadeh’s response obtained can be interpreted by the Iranian regime as a new sign of rejection – or at least irony – towards Ayatollah Khamenei by that sector of the population that has turned its back on the Islamic Republic of Iran. Those Iranians critical of the political system are precisely those who participate in demonstrations such as those that broke out in September 2022, after the death in police custody of a young woman detained for wearing her veil incorrectly, Yina Mahsa Amini. Another way to demonstrate detachment from the regime is through electoral abstention. The arrest of this intellectual has taken place in the middle of the selection process of the candidates who, on June 28, will compete in the elections that will result in the replacement of Ebrahim Raisí, the Iranian president who died in a helicopter accident on June 19. May. In this context, the country’s authorities are once again multiplying calls for high participation.
Iranian writer Hosseyn Shanbezaadeh has reportedly been detained by Islamic Republic forces for-
(you won’t believe it)
-commenting on the Supreme Leader’s post with a punctuation mark. For a period.
Your account has been suspended for no apparent reason as well? @elonmusk @X pic.twitter.com/nkQFKbk4hX
— Nazanin Nour (@NazaninNour) June 5, 2024
After the news of the writer’s arrest was spread, the hashtag with his name (#HosseinShanbehzade) became a trend in Iran this Tuesday on X, a social network that, like the rest of this type of platform, is officially banned in the country. despite the fact that the country’s senior officials, including Khamenei, maintain official accounts there.
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Ordinary Iranians cannot use the old Twitter so openly, under penalty of ending up in prison, so they usually access that and other social networks through virtual private networks (VPN), which hide their identity on the internet. , a possibility that the Iranian authorities are also trying to limit. In February, Tehran made VPNs illegal with a new rule that, according to the Qatari channel Al Jazeera, had the green light from the Iranian supreme leader. Social networks are very popular in the country and, during the protests of the “Woman, Life and Freedom” movement, those sparked by Amini’s death, they were used profusely to spread images and videos of the repression in which at least 550 died. Iranians and more than 60,000 were detained, according to the United Nations.
Shanbehzadeh, whose whereabouts are unknown, had already been detained in the past for his criticism on social networks. The “characteristic Iranian black humor that he uses in his messages, his ironies and his beautiful voice, which made many users ask him to perform songs or upload singing videos, had earned him the support of many thousands of followers,” explains Sheermohammadi. He was also benched in 2020 for alleged disrespect to the Iranian supreme leader. On September 12 of that year, Section 28 of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran, where he resides, sentenced him to three years and six months for “insulting” Khamenei; another 18 months for insulting the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who died in 1989; and 10 months for “propaganda against the regime.” In total, five years and ten months, of which he had to have served just over three.
In July 2022, the activist entered the feared Evin prison in the Iranian capital, known for housing political prisoners, to serve his sentence. A few months ago – it is not clear whether in March or April – he regained his freedom, without it being revealed why he did not serve the entirety of his sentence.
Rappers
Activist Ryma Sheermohammadi suspects that the day of this writer’s arrest was not coincidental. This Tuesday, the Human Rights Foundation presented the Václav Havel Prize in Oslo (Norway). One of the winners was the popular Iranian rapper and hip-hop artist Toomaj Salehi, who on April 24 was sentenced to death by the Iranian authorities for his support of the protests of the “Women, Life and Freedom” movement and for his critical lyrics against the regime.
Two other rappers, Vafa Ahmadpour and Danial Moghadam, are missing after being arrested in early May in the southern city of Shiraz after posting a video for a song titled Get ready, in which they criticized the legal imposition of the veil on Iranian women and the regime’s death sentences. The setting of the video was the city of Persepolis, the imposing capital of the Persian Empire, with deep symbolic content for many Iranians, some of whom contrast the legacy of that refined ancient civilization with the Islamic character of their current regime.
In recent months, the Iranian regime has intensified repression against artists, filmmakers, activists and any public figure who is critical. One of the best-known cases has been that of filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, who fled Iran a few weeks ago after being sentenced to eight years in prison. Coinciding with the Gaza war and when media attention was focused on Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israeli territory on April 13 and Israel’s subsequent response; The Iranian authorities redoubled their repression against the many women in the country who, since Amini’s death, have dispensed with the veil as a gesture of civil disobedience. In April, many Iranian social media users again showed images of the feared vans of the morality police, the force in whose custody Amini died, and of their agents brutally detaining Iranian women without hijab. Iran executed 853 people by hanging last year, 48% more than in 2022, according to Amnesty International.
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