Mohammad Reza Ali Payam is an Iranian poet and satirist who is also known by his pen name "Haloo". He studied and graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran. In his poems, Ali Payam addresses ongoing political and social problems in Iran with dark humor and satire.

Ali Payam has acted in a number of prominent Iranian films including Jang Athar / Athar’s War, directed by Mohammad Ali Najafi, and Tavahom / Hallucination, directed and written by Saeed Hajimiri, and the television series Sarbedaran, also directed by Mohammad Ali Najafi.

On August 17, 2012, Ali Payam was arrested by officers from the Iranian Cyber Security Police. He was later released from detention on a bail of 100 million tomans, on September 9, 2012. 

Ali Payam was informed of the charges filed against him in a court session held at the Shahid Moghaddas Judicial Complex in Evin Prison, he was accused of “propaganda against the state,” “disturbing the public mind,” “insulting the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini],” “blasphemy against Islam,” and “insulting the Supreme Leader of Iran [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei]." All of the charges filed against Ali Payam were in connection with poems that he had previously written and their political content and themes.

On July 23, 2014, Mohammad Reza Ali Payam was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment by Branch 26 of the Islamic Revolutionary Courts. 

Following the confirmation of his sentence by the Court of Appeals, Ali Payam was transferred to Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj on April 22, 2015, in order to serve his sentence.

Before he went to prison, Mohammad Reza Ali Payam posted a video message on his personal Facebook page, in which he said: “I am going to Evin to serve a prison sentence which was imposed on me because of my poems. These are poems for which I was once tried in 2013. Now, in 2014, I have been tried again and found guilty for the exact same poems.”

During his imprisonment in Rajai Shahr Prison, Ali Payam went on a hunger strike in protest against the prison's poor living conditions. The hunger strike led to a deterioration in his physical condition and he was eventually hospitalized because of his poor health.

Mohammad Reza Ali Payam was eventually released from Evin Prison on March 16, 2016. He continues to compose poems that are critical of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the current conditions in Iranian society.

Ali Payam is a member of the Iranian Cinema Screenwriters Association, a member of the Central Council and a secretary of the Association of Independent Iranian Film Producers, and a permanent member of the Khaneh Cinema Academy Awards Jury. 

Mohammad Reza Ali Payam is also a member of several literary and artistic associations in Tehran. He is also the managing director of the Mina Film Institute. Though he has authored numerous works, the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has only granted a publishing license to one of his books, a collections of poems entitled Efazat-e Haloo.