Last December, shortly after the mysterious disappearance/arrest of famous blogger Hossein Derakhshan, an Iranian blogger named Omidreza Mirsayafi stood trial for an April arrest. Mirsayafi was a blogger of Persian arts and culture; his blog, now defunct, focused on festivals and music, not politics and revolution. As he told Reporters Without Borders, “I am a cultural blogger, not a political one. Of all the entries I posted online, only two or three were satirical. I did not intend to insult anyone.” And yet, after one single comment critical about the Iranian government, Mirsayafi was arrested, tried, and in early February of this year, jailed. He died one month later.
Mirsayafi’s case received very little coverage. It didn’t come to light in the English media until after his trial last November, and despite pleas to mainstream media, the Huffington Post (in a piece that I wrote) was still the largest outlet to cover the story. I spoke with Omidreza a number of times, up until the day before he was summoned for interrogation on February 7. The interrogation came as a surprise, and he was detained; his lawyers were not notified of the reason. Since then, as far as I know, he had not been afforded contact with outsiders.
The cause of his death remains unknown.
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