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Victoria Nuland, a spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department, invoked Kaboudvand's name on Thursday, during her Daily Press Briefing, under the Free the Press Campaign:

And my second thing today is our journalist of the day under our Free the Press Campaign, which is going on from now until May 3rd. Today's journalist is the case of Iranian journalist, Mohammad Seddigh Kaboudvand, who's been held in Evin prison since July 2007. Kaboudvand was reporting on torture in Iranian prisons and now finds himself in one himself, and also on human rights abuses against Iranian Kurds. In 2008, he was sentenced to 11 years in prison for acting against national security and engaging in propaganda against the state. We take this opportunity to call on the Iranian Government to release Kaboudvand and the some 90 other journalist it's currently holding in Iranian prisons.

According to Kaboodvand's family, the jailed journalist has suffered several heart attacks in prison.

Kaboodvand was the head of the Kurdistan Human Rights Defence Organization and director of the Payam-e Mardom newspaper. He was arrested in 2007 and held in solitary at Evin Prison for more than six months.

In 2009, he was awarded the Hellman-Hammett international award and the annual British Press Award.