For most of her career, Yalda Moaiery has trained her lens on the quiet defiance of Iranian women — their protests, their arrests, their tears. On Saturday, a day set aside to honour journalists in Iran, she learned that this work had earned her 15 years behind bars.
حکمم رو گرفتم! ۱۵ سال حبس! بقیه اش هم بماند!
— Yalda Moaiery (@yaldamoayeri) August 9, 2026
A Verdict Without Paperwork
The sentence came under a law passed in the aftermath of last year's 12-day war between Israel and Iran, legislation Tehran describes as a shield against espionage and collusion with hostile states.
When Moaiery walked into the Revolutionary Court, she was given no formal paperwork explaining the case against her. A friend who accompanied her had to copy the charges down by hand from a document neither of them was allowed to keep.
According to handwritten notes reviewed by Reuters, the case against her rests on interviews she gave to outlets deemed hostile by the state, and photographs she is accused of sharing with organisations tied to the United States and Israel.
The agency said it could not independently confirm the contents of the charge sheet.
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Raided Twice, Left With Nothing
Moaiery told that intelligence officers from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps first raided her home in January, during a wave of anti-government protests, confiscating her phone, laptop and other equipment. They returned months later, after the US struck Iranian targets, and took what remained.
"On this occasion, they took everything, including even the cameras I had owned since childhood," she said. "I was subjected to several interrogations, and eventually my case was referred to Branch 33 of the Security Prosecutor's Office and subsequently to the Revolutionary Court."
A Familiar Cell, A Shrinking Window
This is not Moaiery's first brush with prison.
She has already spent two years in Gharchak Prison, a facility she once photographed from the outside, and was previously handed an eight-year term, later reduced, for her coverage of the 2022 uprisings that followed Mahsa Amini's death in custody.
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Rights groups say 16 journalists have been detained in Iran this year alone. She now has just 10 days to appeal.
'The Only Thing I Still Have Is My Truth'
Yet Moaiery insists the state has run out of ways to make her stop.
"I don't have anything to lose," she said. "The regime took everything from me and the only thing that I still have is my truth and honesty as an observer."
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