Iran, Corrects Khamenei’s Tweet: Sentenced to 12 Years in Prison

Hossein Shanbehzadeh, an Iranian blogger and activist who has long been targeted by the Islamic Republic’s justice system, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for, among other things, correcting a post on social media X by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and for alleged pro-Israel propaganda, according to the London-based pro-opposition broadcaster Iran International and Shargh News.

According to the TV station, Shanbehzadeh responded with a full stop to a tweet in which Khamenei posed with the volleyball team and which lacked that punctuation mark. The reply received more likes than the Supreme Leader’s original post, but the activist was arrested a few weeks later in Ardabil. The Iranian judiciary then said that a “Mossad agent” had been detained.

Amir Raisian, Shanbehzadeh’s lawyer, told Shargh News that his client was sentenced to five years in prison for pro-Israel propaganda, four years for “insulting Islamic sacred norms”, two years for “lying” and an additional year for propaganda against the Islamic Republic. The activist will also have to pay a fine of 50 million tomans.

According to the lawyer, Shanbehzadeh plans to appeal the ruling, specifically the charge of pro-Israel propaganda, which he says “has no specific material basis.” Raisian added that this charge is based on the writer’s private chats, not public messages. The lawyer then unveiled some of the evidence cited against Shanbehzadeh. It included support for political prisoners, support for lifting the requirement to wear the veil, a “no to execution” tweet, and expressions of joy over the death in May of then-president Ebrahim Raisi.