Iranian freelance journalist Nasim Soltanbeygi covers politics, social issues, and human rights news for various domestic news websites and newspapers, including state-run reformist Shargh Daily. The reporter also shares news and commentary on social media, such as X and Instagram.
In August 2023, she was sentenced to three years and six months in prison for spreading propaganda against the system and colluding and assembling against national security by Judge Iman Afshari of Branch 26 of Revolutionary Court over her reporting on the 2022 protests following the death in morality-police custody of Mahsa Amini. The sentence, which included a two-year international travel ban and a two-year ban on joining political groups or associations, was upheld on appeal, HRANA reported.
Iranian authorities arrested Soltanbeygi on November 21, 2023 after she responded to a court summons at the Branch One of the Revolutionary Court to begin serving the sentence. She was immediately transferred to Evin prison.
On March 10, 2024 Soltanbeygi was granted medical furlough after an order was issued to halt the enforcement of her prison sentence. According to the exile-based IranWire and a source who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisal, she suffers from several health issues including insomnia. According to the source, Soltanbeygi takes medication for this and other health conditions due to several previous arrests for her journalism between 2006 and 2012. Prison authorities frequently denied her the medication and in January 2024 she was kept incommunicado without any access to prison phone or family visit as a punitive move by the prison authorities.
On September 20, 2025, Nasim Soltanbeigi’s defense attorney, Maryam Kianersi, said that Soltanbeygi’s prison sentence had been deemed eligible for legal leniencies based on an opinion issued by the Forensic Medicine Commission. According to HRANA, the Forensic Medicine Commission reviewed Soltanbeygi’s case and confirmed the suspension of the remainder of her sentence.
Soltanbeygi was initially arrested on January 11, 2023, in Tehran’s international airport as she was boarding a plane to leave the country. Security forces confiscated her personal items including a laptop, cellphone, and luggage and took her to an undisclosed location, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported. She was later permitted to make a brief phone call to her mother to let her know that she was arrested.
Soltanbeygi was temporarily released on bail on February 7, 2023, after spending nearly a month in solitary confinement in ward 2A of Evin prison, under the direct supervision of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)’s intelligence unit.
CPJ emailed Iran’s mission to the United Nations in late 2024 for comment on the cases of imprisoned Iranian journalists including Soltanbeygi but received no response.