HRANA News Agency – Sohail Arabi, prisoner of conscience with a sentence of seven years and six months imprisonment, was arrested in December 2013 and is held in ward 350 of Evin prison. This prisoner, whose request for parole and leave have continuously been rejected, despite serious vision problems, has been denied having medical treatment. This denial has created a lot of problems for this prisoner of conscience. It is said that the case officer’s opinion on “no changes in his ideas” is one of the reasons for this exclusion.
A source close to Arabi family, regarding this prisoner of conscience, told HRANA’s reporter: “In addition to continued rejection of his requests for parole and leave so far, for an appointment with the optometrist, more than 10 times he has written letters to the head of the prison, prison clinic and even to the prosecutor, but still the optometrist has not come to visit him and even he has not been sent to medical centers outside the prison”.
This informed source explained: “Sohail’s eyes’ sight has become weaker. He needs higher score glasses. At the moment he gets headaches with glasses and without glasses he suffers from dizziness. However, these days, ward 350 is such a solitary confinement for him and his only happiness was reading books, and now with this sight problem, he has been deprived of reading.”
The source by referring to the involvement of Sarallah security agency in Soheil Arabi’s case, regarding the reason of objection to his requests, stated: “Judicial officer related to this case who is from Sarallah Headquarters, has attached an order to refuse all requests made by Soheil, because they believe that he still has not changed his opinions and insists on his previous stance. In fact, these officers do not respect even the rules. According to Article 23 of the constitution of Islamic Republic of Iran, inquisition of people’s beliefs is forbidden, and no one may be molested or questioned simply for holding a belief”.
Sohail Arabi was born on August 21, 1985 and is graduated in photography. He is married and has a daughter.
Mr. Arabi used to work with his wife at their photographic studio as a self-employed until he was arrested at his home by Sarallah Intelligence Forces of the Revolutionary Guards and was transferred to ward 2-A of the Revolutionary Guards on December 7, 2013.
After two months of interrogations, he was communicated of his charges of “propaganda against the regime, insulting the founder and leader of the revolution, insulting authorities and blasphemy”, by branch twelve of Court of Culture and Media, and was transferred to ward 350 of Evin prison.
The first court hearing to address the charges of insulting the prophet at Branch seventy one of province’s criminal court, presided by Judge Khorasani, took place and according to the indictment made by the prosecutor’s representative, judge’s order, and two advisers, Sohail Arabi was sentenced to death over the charge of insulting the prophet.
Sohail Arabi has been accused of insulting the prophet (swearing prophet Mohammad), based on what he had shared on his Facebook account, and his death sentence for allegedly insulting the prophet in cyberspace, was upheld by the Supreme Court and he was in risk of execution, but his lawyers’ endeavor to a revise hearing and referring the case to the Supreme Court, was effective and by dropping his sentence by Branch 34, he was saved from capital punishment.
The death sentence of Soheil Arabi, prisoner of conscience was dropped last year, and according to the new verdict, he was first sentenced to 90 months imprisonment and 2 years research in the field of religion, to prove his regret and then his 90 months imprisonment was reduced to 12 months and became a total of 78 months of imprisonment.
Earlier, in the wake of publishing lies and imputing some lies by three websites; Fars News Agency, Jahan News and Dana, against Sohail Arabi, and after his solicitor made a complaints against them, the prosecutor had issued a provision for one of these websites.
It is to say that, earlier these websites lied about Soheil Arabi’s charges and denied the charge of insulting the prophet and imputed some charges against him, but his family and lawyers protested and published a copy of the court’s verdict, it was found that Mr. Sohail Arabi had insulted the prophet and these websites had spread lies against this imprisoned citizen.
Soheil Aarabi’s sentence had been issued, while if the person who is accused to insulting prophet, claims that his statements was on compulsion, omission, mistake or in a state of drunkenness or anger or regardless of language or meanings of words or he was quoting another person, it is not insulting the prophet anymore.
The prisoner of conscience is currently in ward 350 of Evin prison enduring his sentence, and he spent his third birthday in prison, on August 20, 2016.