IRAN: Babak Zamanian to prison

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Iranian student activist Babak Zamanian was sentenced Monday (second item) to a year in prison. He’ll probably be locked up in a couple of days.

In a short e-mail to a friend in Tehran, the student of mining engineering said he would be OK:

‘I’m doing very well. I’m in good health at the dormitory. I’m not at all upset, and those who should be upset are [my captors].’

I wrote a profile about the tall, gawky 23-year-old Zamanian last December. Despite his legal troubles, he continued to remain politically active up until the day of his sentencing.

Last year he was locked up for 40 days in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison, where he said he had been physically abused.

The worst thing about his experience was getting out of jail and realizing the world had all but forgotten him, he told me. Reporters and human rights groups had lost interest in his story. We’ll try to make sure that doesn’t happen this time.

— Borzou Daragahi in Baghdad