An Iranian court has convicted Ali Motaghian, CEO of the country’s semiofficial Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA), on charges of “publishing lies with the intention of disturbing the public.” The case stems from an extensive interview ISNA published in January 2019 in which former Ambassador to Germany Ali Majedi criticizes Tehran for “arbitrary” intelligence operations in Europe, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a watchdog organization. Majedi was quoted as saying that “such operations damage the trust.” Majedi’s comments came after Germany arrested Vienna-based Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi, who prosecutors said belonged to the country’s Intelligence Ministry. German prosecutors allege that Assadi gave a couple explosives and was involved in a plot to bomb a rally of the Iranian exile group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq in France. In another case around the same time, the Danish government accused Iran of planning to kill members of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA) living in Denmark. The ASMLA seeks independence for the country’s oil-rich Khuzestan province and claims to have carried out a series of attacks in Iran. Tehran’s Media Court found both Majedi and the reporter who interviewed him not guilty in a hearing in May. The sentence Motaghian received was not known. According to the judiciary’s Mizan news agency, the ISNA chief could face two months to two years in prison, 74 lashes and a cash fine. Journalists in Iran regularly face harassment from security services and some have been imprisoned for their work.
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