Matthew Trevithick is an American student, writer and researcher.
His first book, which he helped author and edited, was written with the former Minister of Higher Education of Afghanistan, Dr. Sharif Fayez. The book details his life pursuing higher education in the United States and his time in the Afghan government rebuilding Afghanistan's higher education system after 2001. Ambassador Ryan Crocker wrote the book's forward. [1]
In 2015, he travelled to Iran to study Persian. [2] On December 7, 2015, Trevithick was arrested by the Iranian authorities when trying to purchase a ticket back to the United States after his semester of intensive Persian study at Tehran University had concluded. [3]
He was kept for 41 days in Evin Prison, Tehran. He was accused with conspiring against the Iranian government, having access to bank accounts containing millions of dollars, and knowing the location of weapons caches that had been planted around the country. When he denied these accusations, he was placed in solitary confinement for 29 days and threatened with violence repeatedly. [4] [5]
On January 16, 2016, Matthew was released. His release came the same day as a release of 4 other men, though he was released independently of the prisoner exchange between the United States and Iran and traveled home himself after being released. [6]
His imprisonment had not been made public until then. [7]
Evin Prison is a prison located in the Evin neighborhood of Tehran, Iran. The prison has been the primary site for the housing of Iran's political prisoners since 1972, before and after the Iranian Revolution, in a purpose-built wing nicknamed "Evin University" due to the number of students and intellectuals housed there. Evin Prison has been accused of committing "serious human rights abuses" against its political dissidents and critics of the government.
Cyrus Kar is an Iranian-born American film director, and vindicated alleged terrorist who was captured by United States forces in Iraq on May 17, 2005, while filming a documentary on the life of Cyrus The Great. On July 10, 2005, he was released from custody after his family sued, accused the U.S. government of violating his civil rights and detaining him after his clearance by the FBI. He has been accused of smuggling washing machine timers for use in improvised explosive devices in a taxi he was riding into Baghdad.
Ebrahim Asgharzadeh is an Iranian political activist and politician. He served as a member of the 3rd Majlis from 1988–1992 and as a member of the first City Council of Tehran from 1999–2003. His career in politics started as one of the leaders of the group Muslim student followers of the Imam's line that took over the American embassy and held American embassy staff hostage for 444 days.
Kianush Sanjari, is an Iranian journalist and activist. He has a history of being arrested, imprisoned, and imprisoned in solitary confinement several times in Iran.
Haleh Esfandiari is an Iranian-American academic and former Director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. Her areas of expertise include Middle Eastern women's issues, contemporary Iranian intellectual currents and politics, and democratic developments in the Middle East. She was detained in solitary confinement at Evin Prison in Tehran, Iran for more than 110 days from May 8 to August 21, 2007.
Kian Tajbakhsh is an Iranian-American scholar, social scientist, and urban planner. He has taught at both American and Iranian universities. Tajbakhsh is an international expert in the areas of local government reform, urban planning, civil society capacity building, and international public policy research collaboration. He has also directed international projects in the areas of public health and social policy.
Majid Tavakoli is an Iranian student leader, human rights activist and political prisoner. He used to be a member of the Islamic Students' Association at Tehran's Amirkabir University of Technology, where he studied shipbuilding. He was arrested at least three times by the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, during the student protests over the disputed Presidential Election of 2009. In response to allegations that he cross-dressed as a disguise to avoid arrest, a campaign protesting his imprisonment featured men posting photos of themselves wearing hijab.
Sharif Fayez, also known as Mohammed Sharif Fayez,, was an academic in Afghanistan, who also served as the country's Minister of Higher Education from 22 December 2001 to 2007. He has written several English and Persian books.
Kouhyar Goudarzi is an Iranian human rights activist, journalist and blogger who was imprisoned several times by the government of Iran. He previously served as an editor of Radio Zamane. He is a member of Committee of Human Rights Reporters (CHRR), serving as the head from 2005-2009.
Sayed Ziaoddin Nabavi, also known as Zia Nabavi, is an Iranian student activist. He previously served nine years of a 10-year sentence on charges of "creating unease in the public mind" before being released in February 2018.
Narges Mohammadi is an Iranian human rights activist and Nobel laureate. She is the vice president of the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC), headed by her fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Shirin Ebadi. Mohammadi has been a vocal proponent of mass feminist civil disobedience against the hijab in Iran and a vocal critic of the hijab and chastity program of 2023. In May 2016, she was sentenced in Tehran to 16 years' imprisonment for establishing and running "a human rights movement that campaigns for the abolition of the death penalty." She was released in 2020 but sent back to prison in 2021, where she has since given reports of the abuse and solitary confinement of detained women.
Ghoncheh Ghavami, also spelled as Goncheh Ghavami, is a British-Iranian law graduate of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London who was held in solitary confinement in Evin Prison for protesting for equal access to sporting events in Iran.
Keyvan Rafiee is an Iranian political activist. He is a former prisoner of conscience, and was arrested six times for his activities starting in 2003. He is one of the founders of Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI).
Seyed Behdad Esfahbod MirHosseinZadeh Sarabi is an Iranian-Canadian software engineer and free software developer. He was a software engineer at Facebook from February 2019 until July 1, 2020; before that he was a Senior Staff Software Engineer at Google since 2010, and before that at Red Hat.
Kamal Foroughi is a British-Iranian businessman who was imprisoned in Evin Prison in Tehran, Iran. Iranian authorities arrested him in May 2011 while he was living in Tehran as a consultant for the Malaysian national oil and gas company Petronas. In 2013, he was sentenced to eight years in prison, seven for espionage and an additional year for possessing alcohol in his home.
Karan Vafadari is a Zoroastrian Iranian-American businessman. He and his wife Afarin Neyssari were regulars in the Terhan art scene and owned Aun Gallery. They were arrested 2016 and placed in Evin Prison on charges of espionage, possession of alcohol, and "dealing in indecent art." They were released on bail in 2018 but, as of 2023, are still unable to leave Iran. He has three children who live in the United States.
Xiyue Wang is a Chinese-American academic who was imprisoned in Iran from 2016 to 2019 after being accused of espionage.
Mohammadreza Jalaeipour is an Iranian sociologist and political activist.
Farhad Meysami is an Iranian physician, teacher and civil activist. He believes in non violence and civil disobedience. He was sentenced to five year sentence in August 2018 for crimes such as “spreading propaganda against the regime”. He was released in February 2023 after a four-month hunger strike that grew international attention.
Hell Is a Very Small Place: Voices from Solitary Confinement is an American collection of essays by people who have experienced solitary confinement and by academics giving their perspectives on the topic. It was published in 2016 by The New Press in collaboration with Solitary Watch, a website which collects personal stories about solitary confinement. The editors were James Ridgeway, Jean Casella and Sarah Shourd. The former United Nations special rapporteur Juan E. Méndez wrote an afterword for the book.