IRANIAN JOURNALISTS ABROAD PROTESTS TO MR. NA'INI DETENTION
ROME 29 May (IPS) The Association of Iranian Journalists Abroad (AIJA), in a letter to Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, the fundamentalist leader of the Islamic Republic, protested strongly to the "unlawful" arrest of Mr. amid Na’ini, a prominent Iranian journalist.
A leading secularist journalist known for his professionalism, Mr. Na’ini, Editor of the banned "Payam Emrooz" (Today’s Message) magazine was "invited" last April as a "witness" by Judge Sa’id Mortazavi, dubbed as the "butcher" of reformist and independent press, but arrested immediately on his arrival to the court and sent to prison after an interrogation that lasted more than seven hours.
The detention of Mr. Amid Na’ini, one of Iranian senior journalists, astounded the community of journalists and intellectual dissidents, the principal targets of the defeated, but ruling conservatives, as he was not known to be in either Iranian feuding camp, but hailed as a veteran professional.
In the letter, sent on Tuesday, the Rome-based AIJA said it hold Mr. Khameneh'i "personally" responsible for the fate of Mr. Na’ini as well as other detained journalists, including Mr. Akbar Ganji, Mr. Masha’allah Shamsolva’ezin, mr. Latif Safari, Mr. Ezzatollah Sahhabi and Mr. Emadeddin Baqi, among others.
"The utterly unjustified way Mr. Na’ini was arrested is a proof, if needed, of the cowardly methods the Islamic authorities in the Islamic Republic use against innocent dissidents, particularly journalists, and their fear of the power of their pen", AIJA observed.
It added that despite the fact that nearly forty days has past since the arrest of the journalist, no one, including his family and his lawyers, knows where he is detained or whether he is alive?
In a letter to the Iranian authorities, Mr. Naini’s wife, Mrs. Mirza Shirazi expressed concern for the health of his husband, stating that he was suffering from heart deficiency and needed special care by specialists.
As usual, the Judiciary gave no convincing reason for the 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 faith’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 offered during natural disasters as "superstitious".
The agency said Mr. Na'ini admitted approving publication of the incriminated articles, but also observed that the articles dated from three years ago and he had shut the magazine himself, before it being banned by the Judiciary.
On order of the lamed Iranian leader, since April 2000, the Judiciary has closed some 60 reformists and independent 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.
In her letter, Mrs. Na’ini revealed that the authorities have refused her husband to be met by her or the lawyers. "He was even refused to sign the documents giving power of attorney to lawyers", she further noted.
Both the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF, or Reporters Without Borders) and the New York-based Organisation to Protest Journalists have named Ayatollah Khameneh’i as the world’s "worst enemy of freedom of the press and journalists". NA’INI AIJA PROTEST 29501