Journalist to Serve Five Years in Prison for Uncovering Corruption in Tehran Municipality.

Journalist Yashar Soltani has been sentenced to five years in prison for exposing extensive corruption within the Tehran municipality, his lawyer announced January 23, 2019.

“Let’s turn this unjust verdict into an opportunity to fight corruption,” Soltani tweeted the day of the announcement. “We will not hand over Iran to the corrupt.”

 Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran also banned Soltani, the editor-in-chief of the independent Memari News, from leaving Iran or participating in political and media activities for two years, said attorney Sadegh Kashani.

In August 2016, Soltani published an unclassified letter from the government’s National Inspection Organization that exposed the appropriation of government funds and properties to an excess of 2.2 trillion tomans (approximately $702 million USD at the time).