Iranian Poets Fateme Ekhtesari and Mehdi Moosavi Imprisoned

Over at Montevidayo, Johannes Göransson writes about the imprisonment of two Iranian poets. He writes:

[I was asked to translate this from a facebook page set up by Swedish poets who have worked with Fateme Ekhtesari:]

As friends and colleagues of the poets and activists Fateme Ekhtesari and Mehdi Moosavi, we want to call your attention to the fact that they have been missing from their homes in Iran since December 7. On Christmas Eve it was confirmed that they are in the infamous Evin Prison in Teheran.

During 2013, Fateme Ekhtesari, born 1986, has been part of the literary exchange, Resistance At My Writing Desk, through which six poets from Iran and six poets from Sweden together translated the Persian poets’ work to Swedish. The collaboration culminated in a special issue of the journal Kritiker devoted to contemporary Persian poetry, as well as appearances by the Persian poets at the poetry festivals in Stockholm and Göteborg this past September. Upon returning to Iran, Fateme was arrested and interrogated for hours. Her Facebook account was hacked and her blog was shut down.

On December 6, Fateme was supposed to travel to Turkey with her writing teacher, the poet and activist Mehdi Moosavi, born 1976. At the airport they were both informed that they had been placed under travel bans and were instead summoned to an interrogation. They chose not to appear at the interrogation, but within a few hours they had disappeared. Since then, nobody has heard from them. On Christmas Even, sources from the Evin Prison confirmed that they were there.

We hope you will use whatever channels and forums you have access to in order to spread the word about the situation of these poets. The families of Fateme and Mehdi are trying to call attention to their situation. Please contact administrators to spread the news. Share the information about the event in every possible way.

The original announcement can be found here.