Forced to stand trial without his lawyer and behind closed doors, Arash Cigarchi was recently sentenced to 14 years in jail in Iran for the commentary he published in his blog; he was officially charged, among other crimes, with “aiding and abating hostile governments and opposition groups.” Bizarrely, Cigarchi himself may not even have been present at his trial, which Human Rights Watch has condemned as a “sham” that “violated international standards for fair trials.”

Widney Brown, deputy program director of Human Rights Watch, stated that the “Iranian government is sending a message to its critics: keep silent or face years in prison.”

Other bloggers in Iran, including Mojtaba Lotfi and Mojtaba Saminezhad, have been thrown into jail as a result of the political commentary they published in their blogs.

Mimi Hanaoka