Masoud Lavasani

Masoud Lavasani was arrested on June 30, 2009, following the disputed 2009 Iranian Presidential election. He was charged with "Engaging in propaganda activities against the regime". Judge PirAbassi in the Revolutionary Court sentenced him to eight and a half years in prison. He was also issued a lifelong ban from journalism. In the Appeals Court Massoud Lavasani's sentence was reduced to six years in prison and a ten-year ban from journalism.

Masoud Lavasani was arrested and taken to Evin on September 26, 2009. During his detention in solitary he endured harsh psychological torture and pressure. He became weak and sick inside the bitter cold and filthy cell. These days he is being held in the basement of ward, where prisoners are watched day and night with closed-captioned cameras, constantly mistreated and taken to the prison yard every morning at 7am to do their mandatory exercises in cold temperatures.

November 29, 2009, judge Pir-Abassi of the 26th branch of the Revolutionary Court handed down an 8-year prison sentence to lavasani. His charges included conspiracy and acting against national security, insulting the Supreme Leader, disseminating lies through his weblog and emails and so on and so forth. Currently his weblog, the box of ants' memoirs, has been deleted by the interrogators and is not accessible.

Lavasani had originally been sentenced to an ​8  ⁄2 -year imprisonment during his initial trial. The sentencing was delivered to Mr. Lavasani on Thursday, April 15, 2009. Masoud Lavasani received a six-year jail sentence combined with a ban from engaging in any press-related activities for a period of 10 years. Lavasani's general condition is quite precarious and, in spite of an agreement for his conditional release on a 500,000 USD bond, which was very difficult to arrange, Intelligence and judicial officials are still blocking his release. Mr. Lavasani is denied the right to visit his two-year-old child as well as his wife and parents. Mr. Lavasani is being held under tough conditions in the basement section 350 of Evin Prison.

Nevertheless, among cultural circles and the publishing industry, Masoud Lavasani is a familiar name. Book publishers remember him from his vigorous reports and interviews before and during the 2007 Tehran book fair, when he challenged the fair management over its policies and stubbornness to choose Mossalla as the fair venue. When he was denied entry to the fair as a result of his reporting, he did not hesitate to leap over the fences at night and take pictures of clogged pipes and damaged books for the Mehr News agency. The pictures clearly proved that Tehran's Mossalla was not the proper venue for the fair. Finally, because of his book fair coverage, as well as his other reports, he was fired from the Mehr News, where he worked.

According to the latest reports, Lavasani, a detained journalist, has had a nervous breakdown in prison. 07/05/2010 GVF—Advarnews has reported that after more than nine months of imprisonment, journalist Masoud Lavasani has been released from prison for a short leave.

Masoud Lavasani (Persian: مسعود لواسانی ‎), (born 1979 Tehran) is an Iranian journalist and blogger. Lavasani was the culture editor of the newspaper Aftab-e-Yazd in Tehran and has also worked for Shargh, Hamshahri and Etemad as well as the Mehr News agency.