Kioomars Marzban is an Iranian writer and political satirist who was convicted in August 2019 of “cooperating with a hostile state,” “spreading propaganda,” and “insulting sanctities” after a pretrial detention of about one year, during which he was held incommunicado with restricted access to his lawyer. He was sentenced to 23 years, 9 months in prison, and stands to serve 11 years of that sentence if it is not overturned on appeal.

Like many Iranian satirists and critics of the state, Marzban has lived outside the country for most of his career. He left Iran in 2009 and lived in Malaysia, where he made short films and hosted a podcast called “Sangetab Radio”. He then published a book of short stories in 2014. In 2017, he returned to Iran to visit his ailing grandmother and experienced no legal problems for over a year.

In April 2018, Marzban gave an interview to the Iranian Student News Agency, a state-funded media source, in which he discussed his writing classes and experiences abroad. In it, he suggested that his time in Malaysia had changed his view on the future: “Iranians have very limited hopes and dreams,” he said. “Their biggest dream is for the economic problems to be solved and all they think about is their daily affairs. But when I asked people in other countries about this, I realized that imagination and following your dreams is a very important thing.”

On August 26, 2018, Marzban was arrested. In September 2018, the state media began reporting that Marzban had travelled to the US to launch an anti-Iran media outlet, though the charges against him were more moderate. These suggested that Marzban had collaborated with the United States by contributing his writing to publications such as Radio Farda and projects run by U.S. human rights organization Freedom House, because these entities received funding from the U.S. government. Marzban argues that he knew nothing about the funding sources of the publications where his work was published, and his family and friends maintain that he has never travelled to the US nor publicly promoted any specific political ideologies or opinions.

In January 2019, Marzban’s lawyer reported that he had been unable to meet with his client, held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison and had been unable to read the full indictment against him. Finally, after a month’s long trial, Marzban was sentenced on August 25, 2019 to 11 years in prison for peaceful activities under the charges of “contact with U.S. enemy state,” 7.6 years for “insulting the sacred,” three years for “insulting the supreme leader,” one year for “propaganda against the state” and nine months for “insulting officials.” Under Iranian law, the sentences run concurrently but he would have to serve 11 years, the longest of his sentences.

Marzban plans to appeal his sentence in early 2020. Please join The Voice Project in demanding his immediate release and that the Iranian government overturns his sentences.