Iranian-Arab writer sentenced to five years in prison
Published: Monday, August 11, 2008
23:19GMT—7:19PM/EST
WRITER – IRAN – SENTENCE
Washington, 10 August (IranVNC)—Yousef Bani-Taraf, an Iranian writer who has published more than 20 works in Persian and Arabic, was sentenced to five years in prison yesterday on charges of “colluding to disrupt national security”, the semi-official ISNA news agency reports.
Bani-Taraf is a member of Iran’s Writers Association and an honorary member of the Arab Writers Association and has published in Azzaman, Qatar’s al-Sharq Newspaper, and Lebanon’s As-Safir Newspaper.
In his writings, Bani-Taraf champions the right to free speech and the rights of ethnic, linguistic and cultural minorities in Iran.
A number of the residents of Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan Province speak Arabic and Bani-Taraf has written several articles about the suppression of the Arabic language in Iran.
Bani-Taraf’s lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht yesterday told ISNA: “The Revolution Court of Tehran accused Bani-Taraf of involvement in the events of 15 April 2005.”
On 15 April 2005, a group of Khuzestan’s Arab-speaking residents protested against a letter allegedly published by the office of the president, which detailed instructions about changing the ethnic and linguistic make-up of Khuzestan to the detriment of its Arab speaking population. The protesters clashed with police.
Following the protests, the office of the president denied it had published such a letter.
Source: ISNA in Persian
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(Original article written in Persian.)