[3] The murdered journalists included Majid Sharif, an editorialist with the monthly Iran é Farda, writer-journalists Mohamad Mokhtari and Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh, and a couple, Dariush and Parvaneh Forouhar, who were freedom of expression activists.

Zarafshan was arrested by members of the Judicial Organization of Armed Forces (JOAF) in October 2000 after giving a speech in the city of Shiraz in which he stated that the intelligence services had murdered five Iranian intellectuals in 1998 in Tehran.

Iranian judicial organizations have so far failed to explain why Zarafshan, a civilian, was brought before the JOAF, the purpose of which is to try members of the armed forces and Revolutionary Guards for violations of the military code.

It is reported that the Chair of the Iranian Parliamentary Committee for Human Rights has protested against using a military court in these circumstances, branding it "unconstitutional.

During his imprisonment, he was not only denied medical care for an urgent kidney disease for some time but also was held in a cell with prisoners of violent crimes.