2015: Iran: Hossein Ronaghi Maleki
President of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Hassan Rouhani
The Presidency
Pasteur Street, Pasteur Square
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Your Excellency,
Norwegian Pen is deeply concerned that the blogger Hossein Ronaghi Maleki was ordered to return to prison immediately on 29 June 2015. He has not complied, as his health remains precarious.
Maleki was released from prison on medical grounds on 17 June 2015, having been been held since 28 February 2015 after the Iranian authorities accused him of attempting to flee the country while on an earlier period of temporary leave from prison, claims which his father says are false.
Arrested in December 2009, Maleki was sentenced to 15 years in prison in October 2010 after conviction of vaguely worded national security charges in connection with his peaceful blogging. Maleki suffers from kidney disease and associated illnesses and was transferred to hospital several times during his imprisonment.
His father, Ahmad Ronaghi Maleki, was sentenced to four months in prison in July 2015, in a court session he knew nothing about, for ‘publishing lies in cyber space’ in connection with his advocacy for his son.
PEN International is urgently calling for Hossein Ronaghi Maleki not to be returned to prison and for his conviction and sentence, and that of his father, to be quashed.
Confident that you, Your Excellency, will do your utmost to keep Hossein Ronaghi Maleki safe and out of prison, I remain,
Yours faithfully,
Elisabet W. Middelthon
Norwegian Pen
