I'm not defending Iran over this, I fully expect his imprisonment to be for a reason I would consider bullshit, but this article doesn't present much evidence that the two events in the title have any connection. He tweeted a dot, at some point after was arrested.
Technically the article never says the dot is related to the arrest, but it's certainly implied.
> Technically the article never says the dot is related to the arrest, but it's certainly implied.
Given the last sentence of the article is "The prosecutor’s office in Ardabil alleged that Shanbehzadeh had been in contact with Israeli intelligence officers and was arrested when trying to leave the country, according to Voice of America." it's not even implied.
It seems implied. Anybody only reading the headline or not giving it a thorough enough reading would probably think the dot is relevant to the sentencing.
Even carefully reading it, the dot takes up significantly more of the article than what Iran claim the charges were.
Sorry I misread, I meant that the article itself points to the fact that theres more to the charge than the "dot", the just, oddly, happen to mention it on the last line.
In 2010 there was an international campaign of clemency for an Iranian woman who was going to get the death penalty. The campaign said she was imprisoned for adultery. She was in prison for adultery - and also murdering her husband, with her lover's help. This part was always left out of the news reports on this, at least initially.
I don't think their willingness to trumpet Voice of America is anything new, and I more wonder why Voice of America want to make this story about a dot tweet.
Any opposition who gets arrested will get those allegations by default in Iran. It doesn't mean that those are the real reason. The real reason is exactly what's written there: twitting a dot at supreme leader and getting more likes than him (he previously did say 'If I post a dot, I'll get more like than the supreme leader hahaha').
He was also posting satires about the religion of peace.... :) Source: I'm Iranian.
Technically the article never says the dot is related to the arrest, but it's certainly implied.