Editor’s note: Journalist Arash Sigarchi was released from Lakan Prison in north Iran on November 5, 2006, after serving approximately 10 months in prison. He was granted medical furlough on bail for cancer treatment.
Arash Sigarchi, a former editor of the daily newspaper Gilan-e-Emruz and a Web blogger, was sentenced to three years in prison by an Iranian appellate court on several offenses, including insulting Supreme Guide Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and propagandizing against the Islamic Republic in his online blog.
Sigarchi had posted entries and given interviews to Western radio stations that were critical of the government's harassment of fellow bloggers. He was originally given a 14-year sentence by a revolutionary court in Gilan in February 2005.