WORLD PROTESTS AGAINST ARREST OF MR. ALIJANI
PARIS 28TH Feb. (IPS) In a letter to the Head of the Iranian Judiciary Ayatollah Mahmud Hashemi-Shahrudi, the Paris-based press watch dong "Reporters Sans Frontieres" (Reporters Without Borders) protested at the arrest of Mr. Reza Alijani, the Editor of the banned Iran Farda" bi-weekly.
Mr. Alijani, a well-known journalist associated with the Nationalist-Religious movement was arrested on 24 February in his office by security agents on the usual charges of slander, offence against the leader, spreading lies, questioning Islamic sacred principles and disturbing the public order etc.
Mr. Ezzatollah Sahabi, a 70 years-old veteran journalist and ppolitician, owns the paper. He was arrested last December because of his participation at a conference in Berlin and sentenced to four and half year imprisonment.
Transferred to a secret prison that is controlled by the office of the leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i, Mr. Sahabi was reported by his family to suffering from psychological pressures, having lost his memory so much that he failed to recognise his wife and daughter.
In a letter to the Judiciary, Mr. Robert Menard, the RSF General Secretary called on Mr. Hashemi-Shahrudi to "immediately" release Mr. alijani as well the 12 other journalists currently in prison.
"We are especially concerned about the fate of Mr. Ezzatollah Sahabai, Mr. Akbar Ganji, Mr. Ahmad Zeydabadi and Mr. Hoda Saber, because we don’t know their place of detention and we fear that they may be subjected to bad treatment", Mr. Menard observed.
RSF has awarded the Iranian lamed leader Khameneh'i the title of "one of the world’s 22 worst enemies of press freedom".
Iranian analysts see the arrest of Mr. Alijani as interpreting conservatives "genuine fear" from the growing popularity the Religious-Nationalist current enjoys with the public.
"Not only the movement is among the oldest political currents in Iran, but also one that has always fought for freedom of expression and democracy", one analyst observed.
Taking cue mostly from the Grand Ayatollah Hosseinali Montazeri, the Muslim Shi’a’s highest authority who live under house arrest conditions imposed on him by Mr. Khameneh'i, several leading figures of the Nationalist-Religious movement are in prison, like Hojjatoleslam Abdollah Nuri, a former Interior Minister and Hojjatoleslam Hasan Yusefi-Eshkevari, an islamist reformer.
Meanwhile, in its annual report on the situation on human rights conditions in the world, the States Department said Iran’s balance sheet in 2000 sharply deteriorated from the year before.
It noted that in the past months, more than 30 publications had been closed and a dozen of influential journalists were arrested for their criticism against the authorities and the regime.
The report described as "appalling" the situation in Iranian prisons, where political prisoners are tortured with different methods. "Prisons are so crammed with prisoners that cells space do not exceed more than 2.5 metres.
The report also deplored the situation of religious minorities, particularly that of the Baha’is, who have no official protection, the faith being forbidden in Iran.
Iranian Foreign Ministry’s senior spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi immediately rejected the report and described it as "a series of unfounded, repeated and one-sided accusations and claims" and "blunt intervention in Iran's internal affairs".
He said the claims and charges raised in the report were aimed at diverting public opinion from "realities and from positive developments taking place now in Iranian society", but he did not elaborated these "positive developments"
The Iraqi-born Asefi also regretted that the report contains no mention to the situation of human rights in the United States.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran believes that the U.S. government is not in a legal and judicial position -- either internationally or from point of view of world nations -- to judge about human rights situation in other countries", the spokesman said, noting that the Islamic Republic has always followed the teachings of Islam. ENDS ALIJANI PROTESTS 28201