Farshad Khosravi, the managing director and owner of the Sobh Shiraz website, was released on bail on April 28, 2020, after being accused of “libel and disturbing the public mind” for criticizing the actions of the Shiraz municipality.

The Sobh Shiraz website is a news and analysis site which focuses on news relating to the city of Shiraz and Fars province. In a recent article, which was under the “special news” category, the website criticized the actions of a number of government officials. 

The EnsafNews website, which covered the news of Khosravi's court summons, described the website as “a supporter of reformists of Fars province,” “supporters of Hassan Rouhani [Iran's president since 2013] and “supporters of 'The List of Hope' [an electoral coalition of reformers in parliament] during the 2013, 2015 and 2017 elections.”

Cause of the Charges Against Khosravi

Following a legal complaint filed by Haidar Eskandarpour, the mayor of Shiraz, Khosravi was summoned by judicial order to the Branch 4 of the Prosecutor's Office of Shiraz, where he was officially charged. 

No information has been disclosed about the reason for or the nature of the mayor of Shiraz’s legal complaint against Farshad Khosravi. 

However, given the short time period between the publication of the critical article on the Sobh Shiraz website concerning the mayor of Shiraz’s response to flooding, in March 2019 and Khosravi’s court summons, it is likely that the two were linked and that the legal complaint was related to this criticism. In response to the flooding, one of the city’s courts issued a sentence against the mayor of Shiraz. The court’s judgment was issued some time before the article was written and states that the mayor was culpable for the damage caused by the flooding in the city.

The Sobh Shiraz website subsequently published an article entitled “Prison Sentence for Mayor: Now the mayor’s main concern is whether to stay in office or resign.” The article was strongly critical of the municipality’s response to the flooding in Shiraz in March 2019 and the fact that the mayor’s prison sentence had been delayed despite the court having issued a definitive sentence against him.
The article also blamed disagreements between the governor of the Fars province and the mayor of Shiraz as part of the cause for the severity of the flooding in Shiraz and the coronavirus outbreak in the city.

Letter from Media Activists to the Mayor of Shiraz

After Farshad Khosravi was summoned and officially charged, a group of media activists from Fars wrote an open letter addressed to the mayor of Shiraz in which they criticised him for his legal action against Khosravi.

The letter was signed by numerous activists including; Mohammad Borzoi, Seyed Sobhan Taghavi, Navid Jafari, Hossein Hassanpour, Mohammad Javad Shaltokkar, Ebrahim Shishehgar, Pouya Mohseni, Sahar Mokhtari and Farzad Vosoughi. The EnsafNews website, which published the letter, described the letter’s signatories as coming from a range of different positions including managing directors, editors and journalists from media outlets in Shiraz.

In the letter, the activists stressed that the mission of the media is to raise awareness and provide fair criticism with the intention of improving current affairs and conditions. In this way, if there has been a mistake, judgment can be left to the court of public opinion instead of to the judiciary.

The signatories also expressed concern that legal complaints against media outlets by officials have become commonplace which jeopardizes the free flow of information, freedom of expression and the ability to criticize others’ actions.

They concluded the letter by requesting that the mayor of Shiraz withdraw his complaint against Farshad Khosravi.

Neither the mayor nor the public relations department for the municipality of Shiraz responded to the letter.

Previous Legal Complaints Against the Sobh Shiraz Website

As the managing director and owner of the Sobh Shiraz website, Farshad Khosravi has previously faced other legal complaints. Among them was a complaint filed by Mohammad Hadi Imaniyeh, then president of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences and a well-known conservative figure in the city. Khosravi was acquitted by the court in the subsequent legal case.

Current Situation

Farshad Khosravi has been charged with “libel and disturbing the public mind” after appearing in Branch 4 of the Prosecutor's Office of Shiraz. Has since been released on bail.