Hossein Nozari, a digital activist and CEO of the news and analysis website Narenji, was arrested on December 3, 2013, along with several of the site’s writers and editorial board members.

The charges brought against Nozari and his colleagues were “actions against national security by collaborating with foreign networks” as well as “designing a website and producing content for counter-revolutionary sites with the intention of overthrowing the holy Islamic Republic of Iran.”

According to published reports, these individuals were also accused of taking orders from counter-revolutionary dissidents and designing websites opposed to Islamic Republic of Iran and other sites related to the protests following the disputed 2009 presidential election.

On June 11, 2014, Nozari and some of his colleagues were shown with their hands bound behind their backs, in a confession shown on Kerman television. On June 15, 2014, by order of the Kerman Public and Revolutionary Prosecutors, Narenji was officially closed and was no longer available online.

Branch 6 of the Kerman Prosecutor's Office later sentenced Nozari to seven years in prison, which was suspended for three years. More than a year later, on December 4, 2015, Branch 1 of the Kerman Court of Appeals heard Nozari’s case as well as the cases of other Nareni detainees.

A source familiar with the charges told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that, according to the prosecution, “Pat Shargh Govashir Technology Company [a company separate from the Narenji site which provided it with design services] had designed websites for those involved with the Green Movement. But they only designed the sites. They only fulfilled their role as web developers. Customers ordered designs and they delivered, but the content of the sites had nothing to do with them.”

This source also spoke about the Court of Appeals hearing, saying, “The lawyers have said that nothing can be found in the case that could be used as evidence for the charges of propaganda or actions against national security, and it is unclear for what reason the lower court introduced these accusations. The lawyers and their defendants said all of this in the Court of Appeals and that it was expected that the appeals court would vote against the case with all of the defendants being acquitted.”

The source added that the appeals court “consider[ed] the request by the defendants’ lawyers regarding the lower court’s neglect of the notion of the multiplicity of crimes, and in reference to Article 134 of the Islamic Penal Codes, removed the accusation of ‘propaganda against the state’ and ... gave its verdict based only on the accusation of ‘actions against national security’.”

In February 2016, Hossein Nozari and three other members of the Narenji website, including Ali Asghar Honarmand, Ehsan Paknejad, and Abbas Vahedi, were transferred to prison to serve their sentences. According to an informed source, this was at a time when the four defendants and their lawyers were still unaware of the Court of Appeals’ ruling in their cases.

This source told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that “We found out that these four individuals had been sent to prison to serve their sentences without being informed of the Court of Appeals’s ruling. We hope that if they were arrested because of the election, they will be released sooner, because they really didn’t commit any of the accusations that have been made against them.”

Narenji, a Persian-language news and analysis website founded in 2007 and since closed, published news on technological and digital issues and reviewed consumer electronics. The site was launched by a group of technology bloggers from Kerman and quickly became one of Iran’s most popular technology sites. According to its founders, the aim of Narenji was to familiarize people with new digital technology in their daily lives.

In 2010, Narenji won the “Most Informative Website” award in the 2012 Online Festival of Iranian Websites and was awarded the Best Persian Weblog by Deutsche Welle.