Sarkoohi, editor in chief of the monthly literary magazine Adineh, was arrested by Iranian authorities and in September 1997, sentenced to one year in prison for “slandering the Islamic Republic,” a charge which stemmed from a letter he smuggled out of Iran in January describing his detention and torture at the hands of Iranian authorities in 1996. Previously, in 1994, Sarkoohi had been one of 134 writers and intellectuals who petitioned the Iranian government to end censorship and launch official efforts to foster greater freedom of expression.