Blogging cleric released, now faces internal exile

Reporters Without Borders has learned that Ahmad Reza Ahmadpour, a theologian and editor of the “Silent Echo” website, was released on 22 June after serving almost two years of a three-year jail sentence. Known as the “Blogging Mullah,” Ahmadpour will now have to serve the second part of his sentence, which is ten years of banishment from his home town, the religious city of Qom. Arrested on 18 July 2011, he was given the two-part sentence – three years of jail followed by ten years of internal exile – on 26 September 2011 on a charge of spreading false information about the government. Ahmadpour was previously arrested in December 2009 and was given a one-year sentence on a similar charge. While held, he sent an open letter to UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon to draw attention to his arrest. Source: RSF