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Iranwire – Iranian journalist Keyvan Samini was able to contact his family 20 days after his arrest and revealed that he was being held in Ward 209 of Tehran’s Evin prison, his lawyer has said.
The lawyer, Mustafa Nili, said in a tweet on May 9 that the 74-year-old dissident journalist faces charges over his planned participation in a virtual panel discussion last month, amid a crackdown on dissent and the media.
Samimi was arrested in Tehran on April 20 and taken to an undisclosed location, three months after his release from prison following two years of incarceration.
He was due to address on April 21 the conference “Dialogue to Save Iran,” which was organized by a group of Iranian journalists and university professors.
Authorities said Samimi was arrested for having “connections with hostile anti-state groups in exile,” but they did not say whether he had been formally charged.
They also did not give any information about Samini’s whereabouts to his family. A week ago, Samimi’s daughter, Adele, expressed concern about her father’s health, saying he suffers from a heart condition.
Dozens of journalists have been arrested since anti-government protests erupted across the country following the September death in police custody of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini.
A former editor of the now-banned intellectual magazine Iran-e Farda (Iran Tomorrow), Samimi has been imprisoned several times, before and after Iran’s 1979 revolution.
He was detained in December 2020 to serve a three-year sentence and was released in January this year.
In February 2022, Samimi was provisionally released from prison due to health issues but was re-incarcerated in May.
