The article’s main source, Afshin Parvaresh, has been convicted of defamation multiple times and is accused of rape.
Blogger Afshin Parvaresh, who served as the main source of information for Farnaz Fassihi’s article based on Farnaz’s own account, has a personal vendetta against Mr. Aghdashloo and has waged a consistent smear campaign against him for more than five years. Previously, Parvaresh publicly shared the phone number of Aghdashloo’s son on social media channels, leading to harassment and safety concerns for the family.
He has been found guilty in numerous court cases previously for a variety of crimes, including defamation, and is accused of rape by a reputable Iranian-Canadian human rights activist.
Photo sourced from Twitter.
In hundreds of outlandish accusations and defamatory social media posts, Parvaresh has accused Mr. Aghdashloo of a long list of absurd crimes, which are easily disprovable. Parvaresh has wished death upon Mr. Aghdashloo and has told his followers he is aware of Aghdashloo having raped his own daughter. These are categorically false.
He recently claimed that Aghdashloo does not have a legitimate father, stating Aghdashloo purchased his family photos from a flea market in Tehran. Mr. Aghdashloo then had to publish family photos with his parents to disprove this bizarre allegation.
Afshin Parvaresh, who is known in the Iranian art scene as a conspiracy theorist with ties to corrupt and powerful sources, has accused hundreds of Iranian artists, collectors, gallery owners and other public and private figures of similar crimes and wrongdoing, the vast majority without any evidence. Even more concerning, he has been accused of rape in Turkey by a credible Iranian-Canadian human rights activist, Ms. Saghi Ghahraman. Parvaresh has also been convicted of defamation in multiple cases in the court of law in Iran.
Recently and after Parvaresh’s allegations regarding the authenticity of calligraphy artist Mr. Ali Shirazi’s artworks, Mr. Shirazi filed a lawsuit against him. The court found Parvaresh guilty and he lost this case. As a result of the official court investigation in the matter, a separate lawsuit has been filed against Parvaresh’s mother for her role.
This is only one example of many convictions against Afshin Parvaresh, demonstrating the lengths to which Parvaresh goes to in destroying the reputation of individuals and his complicated ring of accomplices and collaborators.
Parvaresh has lawsuits against him in United States as well as Iran, but due to his unknown location and refusal to appear in court, some of these cases are still ongoing.
Parvaresh’s personal vendetta against Mr. Aghdashloo has been documented in a leaked voice recording, stating:
“After the story I have planned for him, [Aghdashloo] will be destroyed in a way that he can’t survive. Neither him nor his family. No one can follow this up or sue. It’s done. He’s history. Nothing but disgrace will remain of him in history.”
Afshin Parvaresh, a short time before Farnaz Fassihi’s article was published.
This is one of a series of voice recordings Parvaresh sent to Mr. Aghdashloo’s former students, encouraging them to speak publicly against him. This recording is from more than a month prior to the publication of The New York Times article.
The inclusion of Parvaresh’s perspective and sources in the article is alarming. While Farnaz Fassihi falsely identifies him as an investigative journalist in The New York Times article, Parvaresh has no documented journalistic background nor has he written for any reputable, mainstream news outlets.
Given his persistent, multi-year smear campaign against the family, the Aghdashloo family has tried to legally identify him to make him prove his allegations in a U.S. court and in 2019 attempted to serve him a cease and desist letter. Parvaresh has thus far evaded and refused to accept the order from the court. In a publicly released letter, Mr. Aghdashloo’s lawyer has called on Parvaresh to stop running from justice and appear in court.
