A PROMINENT JOURNALIST AND ANOTHER REFORMIST CLERIC ARRESTED
TEHRAN 23 Apr. (IPS) The detention of Mr. Amid Na’ini, one of Iranian senior professional journalists astounded the community of journalists and intellectual dissidents, the principal target of the defeated, but ruling conservatives.
A leading secularist journalist known for his professionalism, Mr. Na’ini, Editor of the banned "Payam Emrooz" (Today’s Message) magazine was arrested Saturday after being summoned by Judge Sa’id Mortazavi, dubbed as the "butcher" of reformist press sent to prison after an interrogation that lasted more than seven hours.
As usual, the Judiciary gave no convincing reason for his arrest, but Mr. Mortazavi claimed that the journalist was arrested following complaints from an unidentified State Prosecutor, accusing Mr.Na’ini of insulting Islam and questioning the fate’s basic canons.
According to well-informed sources and confirmed by the official news agency IRNA, the Prosecutor has charged Mr. Na’ini for articles describing the Archangel Gabriel as a "mythic personage" and prayers recited during natural disasters as "superstitious".
The agency said Mr. Na'ini admitted approving publication of the incriminated articles
But what surprised observers and analysts is the facts that the articles dates from three years ago and Mr. Na’ini had shut the magazine himself, before it being banned by the Judiciary.
Iranian commentators said the arrest of Mr. Na’ini, known for his independence from both the conservatives and the reformers, indicates that Ayatollah Ali Khamenehe'i, the leader of the Islamic Republic is know turning his wrath on the remaining journalists and independent press, particularly on the professional ones.
On order of Mr. Khamenehe'i, the Judiciary has closed more than 30 publications and imprisoned a dozen of leading and influential journalists and editors, most of them supporting the reform process set in motion after the victory of Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Khatami in the May 1997 presidential elections.
At the same time, the controversial, leader-controlled Clergymen’s Special Tribunal (CST) jailed Hojjatoleslam Javad Akbarein, a reformist nationalist-religious, accused of insulting Islam, offending the leader and criticising the clerical leadership, the daily "Hambastegi" (Solidarity) reported Sunday.
The paper said Mr. Akbarein, a friend of the jailed Hojjatoleslam Hasan Yusefi-Eshkevari, was convicted last year for articles and speeches criticising the one sided interpretations of Islamic laws by the orthodox clerics like Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, a hawkish cleric much estimated by Mr. Khamenehe'i.
Many clerics objects to the competence and legitimacy of the CST and considers it as an illegal tribunal.
The CST has condemned Mr. Yusefi-Eshkevari, a popular, reform-minded cleric to death, accused of "apostasy", "moharebeh", an Arabic word meaning fighting God, questioning basic tenets of Islam activities against Islam and insulting the leader.
Mr. Yusefi-Eshkevari was arrested last August on his return from Berlin where he had participated at the know famous Berlin Conference and is kept in a secret prison controlled by the Revolutionary guards.
At the time, Mr. Akbarein was sentenced to one year in prison and a fine, but had been free while his case was on appeal.
Meanwhile, newspapers reported Sunday that revolutionary guard colonel Farhad Nazari, the former commander of the Capital’s Law Enforcement Forces was uninjured during an assassination attempt Saturday.
According to the authorities, Mr. Nazari was shut at by a gunman sitting on the back of a motorcycle at a crossroads in central Tehran, but escaped unharmed.
Accused by students for having ordered and conducted a savage raid on students dorms in Tehran on the night of nine July 1999, causing the death of at least one student and wounding hundreds, some of them thrown out of the windows by conservatives-controlled islamist vigilante and plain cloth agents of the LEF and Intelligence Ministry, Mr. Nazari nevertheless acquitted.
The nightly attack led to a six-days widespread demonstrations and protests by Iranian students calling for democratic reforms.
But as the protests increased in momentum and students were joined by the public, wearing anti-regime and anti-leader slogans, Mr. Khamenehe'i, in agreement with President Khatami, ordered revolutionary guards, LEF and vigilante to crush the movement "at any const".
But while hundreds of students were arrested in Tehran and other major cities and jailed, the court, despite protests by reformists and students organisations, acquitted the officer and no one has ever been held responsible for the attack on the students. ENDS NA’INI ARRESTED 23401