Last week Iranian activist Abed Tavancheh was sentenced to one year in prison for giving an interview to SPIEGEL about student protests. His lawyer Naser Zarafshan says his client doesn’t regret speaking out.

SPIEGEL: Your client Abed Tavancheh was supposed to have been arrested last Tuesday. What do the authorities in Iran accuse him of having done?

Naser Zarafshan: Abed Tavancheh fights for freedom of expression and democracy. He had already been arrested four times and sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment. A part of the current allegations against him relate to these activities. The primary charge, though, has to do with an interview he did with SPIEGEL in September about the tense atmosphere in the universities. The state prosecutor says that by doing this he spread “propaganda against the holy order of the Islamic Republic” and that he “incited unrest.”