Iran's Revolutionary Court has sentenced Reyhaneh Tabatabaei, an Iranian reformist journalist, to one year in jail for allegedly “spreading propaganda against the regime” for her journalistic activities.

Judge Salavati – who is well-known for his harsh rulings – handed down a one-year prison sentence and a two-year ban on joining political parties and writing for any newspaper or website, to the 35-year-old journalist.

Tabatabaei was informed of her sentence on Tuesday, November 17, 2015, a day after Iran’s Revolutionary Guards arrested prominent Iranian cartoonist Hadi Heydari – the latest arrest in a fresh crackdown on press freedoms in Iran.

Tabatabaei’s trial took place in Tehran’s Revolutionary Court last year, while the final hearing was held in November 2014. Over the past five years, Tabatabaei has been arrested three times and has spent more than six months in Evin Prison, including two months in solitary confinement.  

Tabatabaei’s support of the Green Movement, her activities on Facebook and some of her charity work, including a trip to the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan to help orphan children, has also been used as evidence against her.

Her verdict follows a wave of arrests of journalists, poets and artists by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in the past few months in what appears to be a preventive crackdown on free expression ahead of parliamentary elections in February 2016.

Read more about Reyhaneh Tabatabaei on her profile.