Mashallah Shamsolvaezin (born 18 June 1957) is an Iranian newspaper and magazine publisher who edited many of post-revolutionary Iran's first and most widely circulated independent newspapers, including Kayhan, Jame'eh, Neshat, and Asr-e Azadegan. He currently serves as the spokesman for the Iranian Committee for the Defense of Freedom of the Press, and also as vice president of the Association of Iranian Journalists. A recipient of the 2000 CPJ International Press Freedom Award, Shamsolvaezin has been imprisoned multiple times for his journalistic activities. On June 29, 2014, he was charged with "propaganda against the state" and banned from leaving Iran. As of July 2014, he is on bail. Work as editor of Kayhan Shamsolvaezin served as the founding editor-in-chief of the magazine Cultural Kayhan. It served as a platform for spirited debate among intellectuals, and published work by the leading Iranian thinker Abdulkarim Soroush. On the importance of Kayhan, Forough Jahanbakhsh wrote: "The journal Kiyan ... can be credited for its seminal role in fostering the growth of the religious intellectual discourse of post-revolutionary Iran." In 1984, the magazine Kayhan-i Farghani (Cultural) was founded by Sayyid Mostafa Rokhsefat, Sayyid Kamal Hajj, Sayyid Javadi and Hasan Montazer Qa'im. Kayhan-i Farghani was the first monthly magazine of thought and literature to be published after the Islamic revolution. It addressed a broad range of provocative issues, including social justice, the relationship between religion and science, and the relationship between Islam and the West. The magazine published a groundbreaking series of articles by Abdulkarim Soroush, "The Theoretical Contraction and Expansion of Religion," which laid the foundation for Soroush's influential philosophy of religious modernism. Following controversy over Soroush's articles, the magazine's editorial board was forced to resign, and Kayhan-i Farhangi was closed in 1990. In 1991, Kayhan-i Farhangi was re-opened in compliance with the cultural policy of the regime and under a new editorial board. Meanwhile, the old editorial board of Kayhan-i Farhangi founded a new journal named Kiyan, with Shamsolvaezin as editor in chief. Kayhan was ordered closed by Tehran's Press Court on January 17, 2001. Judge Saeed Mortazavi, head of the press court, claimed that Kiyan had ""published lies, disturbed public opinion and insulted sacred law." Work as editor of Jame'eh, Neshat, and Asr-e Azadegan In 1998, Shamsolvaezin left Kayhan to serve as editor in chief of a new daily newspaper Jame'eh (Society). Jame'eh gained 300,000 readers after just 7 months of publication, becoming