Last Update
Jan. 29, 2022
Organisation
Unknown
Gender
Male
Ethnic Group
Unknown
Religoius Group
Muslim
Province
Tehran
Occupation
Social Media Activist
Sentence
Unknown
Status
Released
Institution investigating
Unknown
Charges
Unknown
Hadi Mehrani is a media activist and manager of the “Reformist Veterans of the Sacred Defence” Telegram channel. The channel’s name is a reference to iran’s 1980-1988 war with Iraq. He was arrested by security forces on April 11, 2020, and transferred to an unknown location.
Mehrani’s Telegram channel has close to a hundred thousand members and regularly posts content which is generally critical of the policies and practices of Iranian government officials.
In addition to this, Mehrani recently posted a number of tweets on his personal account, criticizing the actions of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting body as well as Shi’i superstitious practices in response to the coronavirus outbreak in Iran.
In March 2020, an official media outlet close to the regime, Mashreq News, accused Mehrani of publishing “insulting and offensive content” as well as “insulting religious people and beliefs.”
Mehrani, on his personal Twitter page, describes himself as a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war and as being “proudly reformist.”
The reasons for Mehrani’s arrest and the accusations against him, as well as his current location, remain unknown.