Four detained Azari journalists in Iran released on bail
Published: Tuesday, November 11, 2008
14:35GMT—9:35AM/EST
PRESS – JOURNALISTS – EVIN – FREEDOM
Washington, 11 November (IranVNC)—Four Azari journalists in Iran were temporarily released on 8 November from Tehran’s Evin Prison, after posting a bail of 50 million tomans [about 50,000 dollars], the Paris-based press watchdog, Reporters Without Borders [RSF], reported yesterday.
The four men were arrested with 20 others on 10 September by security forces in Tehran and charged with “offense against national security”. According to the Committee of Human Rights Reporters, they were attending an Iftar celebration, the evening meal breaking fasting during the month of Ramadan, at the house of an Azari civil rights activist.
The four men are Alireza Sarrafi, managing-editor of the banned monthly Dilmaj; Saeed Mohammadi, chief-editor of the literary publication, Yashmaq; and Akbar Azad and Hassan Rashedi, two journalists working for Yarpaq and Varliq publications.
The relatives of the released detainees told RSF that the four men were kept in solitary confinement and interrogated “heavy-handedly” by intelligence officers at Tehran’s Evin Prison.
“This confirms that journalists are subjected to appalling conditions in Evin Prison,” RSF said. “Solitary confinement and heavy-handed interrogation, often while blindfolded, are part of the arsenal used … to intimidate detainees and make them confess to things they did not do,” the group added.
At the same time as the temporary release of these four Azari journalists, Amir Kabir University of Technology’s student newsletter reported on Sunday 9 November, that Shahnaz Gholami, a female journalist was arrested in Tabriz, the capital of Iran’s East Azarbayjan Province.
Gholami, the editor of Azar-Zan [Azari Woman] weblog, and a member of the Iranian Women Journalists Association [Persian: Anjoman-e Ruznameh-negaran-e Zan-e Iran; RZA], has had no contact with her family or lawyer. Gholami had previously been held as a political prisoner for five years from 1989 to 1994. This past summer, she was again arrested for participating in events commemorating the protests of two years ago, in 2006, in Iran’s predominantly Azari cities. No reasons have been given for her most recent arrest.
Also today, the website of Human Rights Activists in Iran, reported that three other Iranian Azari citizens, namely, Zahra Jeddi, Marziyeh Jeddi and Ali Amini, have been sentenced by the first branch of Tabriz’s Revolution Court to suspended six-month prison terms. The three were accused of “distributing fliers and conducting propaganda against the system [of Islamic Republic].”
The Jeddi siblings had previously been arrested during the 2006 Azari protests for one month and released temporarily on probation. A date, 25 Azar [16 December] has been set by the sixth branch of Eastern Azarbayjan’s Court of Appeals for the trial of the Jeddi siblings.
RSF has in the past described Iran as the “Middle East’s biggest prison for journalists”. According to the group’s 2008 press freedom index released last month, Iran was ranked 166 out of 173 countries.
Five journalists are still being held in Iran, the majority of who are ethnic minorities, RSF reports. The actual number of arrested journalists, however, is believed to be higher.
Among these detainees is Mohammad Sadeq Kaboudvand, a journalist and activist, who was sentenced last June to 11 years in jail for “acting against national security”. An Appeal Court in Tehran upheld that sentence last month, a decision that was condemned by RSF.
Mohammad-Hasan Fallahiehzadeh, an imprisoned journalist, who has been detained since November 2007 and is currently being held in Tehran’s Evin Prison, went on a hunger strike last month, the Human Rights Activists in Iran website reported.
In addition to arresting journalists, Iranian authorities also censor voices in that country by shutting down newspapers, magazine, and student publications, RSF has stated.
Last week, the pro-reform weekly magazine, Shahrvand-e Emruz was banned because its contents contradicted the license commitments of the publisher, the Kargozaran newspaper reported. An attorney for Shahrvand said that this weekly was banned for publishing political articles.
Earlier this month, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, voiced his “displeasure” at Iranian media outlets which have been critical of the government and accused them of “darkening” the climate of society, the official IRNA news agency reported. The last time that Iran’s supreme leader gave such a warning to the country’s news media was eight years ago. Following his words, from the spring of 2001 until today close to 200 publications have been closed in Iran.
Sources: Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights Activists in Iran, Committee of Human Rights Reporters website, IRNA, in Persian
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