Sixty-five-year-old Iranian Christian convert Esmaeil Maghrebinezhad has had his three-year jail sentence for “insulting Islamic sacred beliefs” overturned on appeal.

Esmaeil was informed of the verdict yesterday by his lawyer, Farshid Roofoogaran.

In the verdict, dated 5 July, the judge at the 17th Branch of the appeal court in Shiraz, Jamshid Kashkouli, accepted Mr Roofoogaran’s defence that Esmaeil had not been the originator of a social media joke insulting Islamic clerics – he had only responded with a smiley face emoji – and that anyway the clerics themselves are not considered “sacred” in Islam.

Esmaeil is still awaiting the result of separate appeals against two further jail sentences – of one and two years, respectively – for “propaganda against the state” and membership of a “Zionist Evangelical Christian” group “hostile to the regime”. (Esmaeil is an Anglican Church member.)

Background

Esmaeil received his three-year sentence on 11 January, following a hearing on 8 January at Branch 105 of the Civil Court in Shiraz. He was sentenced under Article 513 of the Islamic Penal Code, which provides for a punishment of between one and five years in prison.

On 17 February, Esmaeil was sentenced by a Revolutionary Court to two years in prison for “membership of a group hostile to the regime”, under Article 499 of the Islamic Penal Code, which provides for three months to five years’ imprisonment.

Then on 9 May the judge at the 1st Branch of the Revolutionary Court in Shiraz, Seyed Mahmood Sadati, amended his initial verdict, upholding the conviction for membership of a “Zionist Evangelical Christian” group “hostile to the regime” and adding a new charge of “propaganda against the state”, for which he was given a separate one-year jail sentence.

Having overturned the first of his three prison sentences, Esmaeil and his family are now anxiously awaiting the result of his appeals against the two remaining sentences.