Hossein Ronaghi
Hossein Ronaghi is a blogger, internet freedom advocate and a human rights defender who has been previously arrested for his role in renewing proxies that allowed journalists and political activists to circumvent the government's website bans following the 2009 post- presidential election protests in Iran. In October 2010, he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison by Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court on the charge of “membership in Iran Proxy Network with the intention of disrupting the national security,” “insulting the supreme leaderand the president” and "spreading of misinformation” with his critical blog posts. He spent six years in prison and developed severe health conditions, based on which he was released from prison in 2019.
Hope for political reform in Iran surfaced when President Hassan Rouhani assumed office in 2013 and dozens of opposition political figures and human rights defenders were released. However, violations of the rights to freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly and movement of HRDs continue to be prevalent.
Human rights defenders and journalists are arrested, detained and prosecuted in unfair trials. HRDs continue to receive death threats and are subjected to harassment, arbitrary arrest and detention. They are refused bail or receive extreme bail conditions. HRDs are additionally subjected to systematic surveillance and their family members are targeted. Journalists have been subjected to flogging for criticising the government.
