Omid Reza Mir Sayafi (also Omidreza Mirsayafi; 1979/80 – March 18, 2009 in

Evin Prison Evin Prison () is a prison located in the Evin neighborhood of Tehran, Iran. The prison has been the primary site for detaining Iran's political prisoners since 1972, before and after the Iranian Revolution, in a purpose-built wing nicknamed "E ...

Tehran Tehran (; , ''Tehrân'') is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is the capital of Tehran province, and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District (Tehran County), Central District. With a population of around 9. ...

) was an Iranian blogger and journalist. Mir Sayafi was the first blogger to have died while in prison for his publication. Two other bloggers were killed afterward, and they are the Bahraini blogger

Zakariya Rashid Hassan al-Ashiri Zakariya Rashid Hassan Al-Ashiri (), also spelled Al Asheri and Aushayri, (1971– April 9, 2011), was a forty-year-old Bahraini blogger and journalist, worked as an editor and writer for a local blog news website in Al Dair, Bahrain. He was ...

, who was killed in April 2011 and Brazilian blogger

Edinaldo Filgueira Edinaldo Filgueira, also spelled Ednaldo ( – 15 June 2011), was a Brazilian blogger and journalist and editor. He was owner of the newspaper and online ''Jornal o Serrano'' in Serra do Mel, Brazil. He was assassinated by gunmen as he left work. ...

, who was killed June 2011.

Career

Mir Sayafi's blog is no longer accessible. But in the

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by Internet Archive, an American nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California. Launched for public access in 2001, the service allows users to go "back in ...

there is an archive containing the blog posts that led to his imprisonment. Mir-Sayafi's main area of expertise was traditional Persian music. He also wrote poetry and penned articles for

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

-language electronic art journals. He was apparently well known in Iranian intelligentsia circles.

Death

In December 2008, Mir Sayafi was sentenced to two and half years in prison for allegedly insulting religious leaders and engaging in propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran. When he died, Mir Sayafi was still awaiting an additional trial for insulting Islam.

Reactions

Some human rights groups that his death follows a pattern of Iranian authorities "denying urgent health care to prisoners of conscience, resulting in their death."

Impact

Several citizen media groups, such as the Committee to Protect Bloggers, have announced March 18 as ''the day of solidarity with persecuted bloggers''.Ben Schreckinger and Sean P. Smith. 2011. "Left in limbo in Iran." GlobalPost, July 14. Retrieved 4 November 2011 from Lexis-Nexis Database. The March 18 Movement was created in his memory.

References

External links