Journalist, researcher, and political activist Hamed Ainehvand is in ICORN residency in Ljubljana
Journalist, researcher, writer, and political activist Hamed Ainehvand from Iran arrived in Ljubljana in August 2023, taking up the city’s ICORN residency. Since moving to Slovenia, Ainehvand has continued his journalistic career, working with international media outlets such as Voice of America and BBC Persian.
Hamed Ainehvand holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science and a Master’s Degree in International Relations and was expelled from the Tehran University of Science and Research while enrolled in a PhD course in International Relations. As well as continuing his journalistic career from exile, Ainehvand is also planning to finish his doctorate.
During more than a decade of his journalistic career, Ainehvand has written in many newspapers close to Iran's reformism in various fields of domestic and foreign policy. His first arrest took place in 2003 during the Koi anniversary demonstration at Tehran University and he was released from prison after three months.
In 2015, he registered to participate in the 10th round of the Islamic Council elections from the constituency of his hometown Toyserkan but was disqualified by the Guardian Council. After his disqualification, he started working with Persian-language media abroad and strongly criticized the domestic and foreign policies of the Islamic Republic.
He was arrested and detained for the second time in July 2018, while leaving the National Library, on charges of propaganda against the system and community, and collusion with the intention of acting against national security.
After about two months of solitary confinement and no access to a lawyer, he was sentenced to 6 years in prison by the 28th branch of the Revolutionary Court. Following the bloody suppression of the demonstrations in November 2019 and the interruption of the Internet in Iran due to the increase in international pressure on the Iranian government, he was released from prison with a general amnesty after serving two years of his sentence in Evin prison.
Following the severe suppression of the Women, Life, Freedom movement in Iran, Ainehvand lived in hiding and eventually left Iran. In August 2023, he took up the ICORN residency in Ljubljana where he is the city’s seventh ICORN resident.
Ljubljana ICORN City of Refuge
Ljubljana joined ICORN in 2011 and has since hosted seven ICORN residents Zineb El Rhazoui, Ali Amar, Girma Fantaye, Sameer Sayegh, Shiva Nazar Ahari, Souzan Ali, and most recently Hamed Ainehvand.
The ICORN residency in Ljubljana is hosted through a partnership between the Department of Culture of the City of Ljubljana, Ljubljana City Library, and Slovene PEN. In 2014, Ljubljana hosted the ICORN General Assembly.
