Soheil Arabi
Age: 37
Activism/rights: Journalist
Status: Exile in Borazjan city
Judicial status: Sentence served, serving 2 years exile
Violations: Arbitrary arrest and detention, prolonged solitary confinement, familial punishment, access to lawyer, lack of due process, unfair trial, torture and ill-treatment, lack of separation of crimes, prison exile
Soheil Arabi is the 2017 Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom prize recipient who in 2013 spent four years on death row after he was found guilty of sab al-nabi (insulting Prophet Mohammad) through his posts on Facebook. His sentence was later commuted to seven and a half years imprisonment which he served without a day’s furlough. In that time, he went on hunger strike several times, in protest to the arrest and harassment of his wife and family, and in 2019, in protest to the poor prison condition and to the death in custody of 21-year-old political prisoner Alireza Shir Mohammad Ali. Soheil had been fighting for political prisoners to be separated from dangerous crime prisoners prior to Alireza being stabbed to death by two death row prisoners. In response to his demand, his mother, Farangiz Mazloum was arrested on 22 July 2019. He was himself the victim of attacks in prison due to the lack of separation of crimes. Throughout his detention, Soheil has reported on the rights violations, dire prison conditions and been outspoken in defending both ordinary crime and other political prisoners including Narges Mohammadi, Golrokh Ebrahimi-Irayi and Atena Daemi. While serving his previous sentence, Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court presided over by Judge Iman Afshari sentenced Soheil to two years imprisonment and a two-year-ban from journalism amongst other restrictions in July 2021. He was charged with “propaganda against the system” for reporting about prison conditions and “disturbing public opinion” for protesting against the crackdown of the November 2019 nationwide protests. His sentence was upheld by Branch 36 of the Tehran Court of Appeals. According to his lawyer, Mostafa Daneshjou tweeted that due an official mistake, Soheil had been held in detention seven months longer than his sentence. After eight years behind bars, he was released from Rajai Shahr Prison on 16 November 2021. Upon release, he was put in a car and dropped off in Borazjan at 3 am, still in his prison clothes and without any money or a phone and told he would have to sign-in at the police station in the morning. Borzarjan is the designated place of his two-year exile from his last case. The overtime he served will be subtracted from his two-year-exile. In August 2022, he won the Freethought Champions Award at Celebrating Dissent 2022 along with Richard Dawkins. Following calls threatening sexual violence against his imprisoned mother, Farangis Mazloum in the midst of the nationwide protests, he surrendered on 10 October 2022 and spent a week in an unofficial IRGC building before being released. Soheil was violently re-arrested in relation to his activism on helping people in Kurdistan and Baluchistan on 2 January 2023, suffering from a heart attack under interrogations just hours later. Before his medical treatment was complete, he was transferred to prison. He was also denied access to medical treatment and his medication in prison. His father passed away from the pressure and harassment on 17 March 2023 and Soheil was released from prison just two days later, a month after he finished serving his sentence. He was forced into exile in Borazjan city after he refused to request amnesty.
Soheil Arabi was reported missing for a week on 16 March 2026, amidst the Israel–US war with Iran. According to informed IHRNGO sources, he was transferred to the solitary confinement cells of Unit 3 in Ghezelhesar Prison on 11 March, where he is currently being held.