Navid Jamshidi is a member of the International Federation of Journalists and the Tehran Journalists Guild and editor-in-chief of the website Asia News.

Jamshidi was arrested at his home in Tehran at midnight of September 29, 2022, following an interview with the Voice of America (VOA) about protests over the death of Mahsa Amini in the hands of Morality Police.

The security agents stated no reason for his detention. Agents forcibly entered his home and confiscated his laptop computer, smartphone and notes.

This is not the first time that Jamshidi has gotten into trouble with the Islamic Republic’s security agencies.

Jamshidi has been interrogated by security officials for a number of reasons since the early 2000s, around the same time as Asia was suspended for the first time.

In October 2012, following a telephone call, Jamshidi was summoned to the Ministry of Intelligence.

Jamshidi spoke to Journalism is Not a Crime about his summons, saying, “During this interrogation, which lasted seven hours, security officers asked me various questions about my personal life, my work and personal connections and finally they showed me a written form stating that they could arrest me, but they preferred not to do so.”

The reason for the interrogation was not officially disclosed, however, Jamshidi’s publication of a post in relation to Abdul Rahim Jafari, the founder of the seized publication Amir Kabir on his birthday, was one of the main focuses of questions during Jamshidi’s interrogation.

In May 2017, following the arrest of Jamshidi’s father, Iraj, Navid Jamshidi published a number of posts regarding his father’s suspicious arrest and concerning the violations committed by Bank Mellat, the plaintiff in his father’s case. Navid Jamshidi was consequently summoned to the Culture and Media Courts.

Navid Jamshidi spoke about these summons, saying, “After several summonses to the Prosecutor’s Office, my case was finally referred to Press Courts (Provincial Court) for trial. In February 2018, I was sentenced to pay a monetary fine of 1.5 million tomans by Judge Kashkuli. The Court of Appeals acquitted me of the accusation of ‘spreading falsehoods’ and ‘disturbing the public mind’ because I had no previous criminal record.”

In recent years, Jamshidi has been threatened several times by unknown individuals due to his interviews with Persian-language media outlets based outside of Iran.