NO ONE CAN KILL FREEDOM OF PRESS, ASSURED IRANIAN LEADING JAILED JOURNALIST
NEW YORK 3 May (IPS) Masha’allah Shamsolva’ezin, a prominent Iranian journalist, in a message on the occasion of the "World Press Freedom Day" called on the people of the world not to forget the "oppressed" Iranian journalists and assured that "no one can ever kill the freedom of the press".
The message, written from prison, was released Thursday by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that had earlier awarded Mr. Shamsolva’ezin for his courage.
Condemned to 30 months of jail for insulting the leader or questioning the basic laws of Islam and other unfounded charges, Mr. Shamsolva’ezin edited, with the help of another colleagus Hamid Reza Jala’ipoor and Latif Safari, some of Iranian most lively newspapers, including "Jam’eh","Toos", "Neshat" and "Asr Azadegan", all closed on orders from the leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’I, "nominated" by the Patris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) as well as by the CPJ as the world biggest enemy of press freedom.
"Despite languishing in jail, I've celebrated this day together with my other journalist colleagues in prison and share the feelings of journalists all over the world", the imprisoned journalist said in his message from Tehran's notorious Evin Prison to "journalists all over the world, especially the oppressed Iranian journalists".
He asked that people remember
those journalists who have "sacrificed their life to protect press freedoms
and spared no efforts in strengthening the fourth pillar of democracy."
"They can never kill the thought of freedom"
Shamsolvaezin's message concludes that World Press Freedom Day "gives us
the opportunity to remind those who covertly or overtly are involved in jailing
journalists and breaking their pens that they can never kill the thought of
freedom."
CPJ executive director Ann Cooper called
Shamsolvaezin's statement "a
On orders from the Iranian leader, some 40 publications have been closed in the past year and a dozen of journalists, most of them among the most talented and influential, including Mr. Shamsolva’ezin, Akbar Ganji, Latif Safari, and Emadeddin Baqi and Taqi Rahmani have been sent to prison.
Mr. Shamsolva’ezin, referred to by friends as Shams, in his message, termed the "World Press Freedom Day" as "a day of memories, risks, and hopes and asked people to remember journalists who have "sacrificed their life to protect press freedoms and spared no efforts in strengthening the fourth pillar of democracy".
Like the RSF, the CPJ on Thursday issued an updated list of countries failing to respect freedom of the press and named Ayatollah Khameneh’i, Iran’s religious and political leader as one of the worlds worst enemy of press freedom this year, ahead of Charles Taylor of Liberia and Chinese president Jiang Zemin, that followed him.
Fresh additions were Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Carlos Castano, a Colombian paramilitary leader. Cuban leader Fidel Castro was also featured on the list.
"Khameneh’i, the religious leader who exercises enormous influence over key institutions in Iran, is the instigator of a relentless campaign that has shuttered the country's vibrant reformist press by closing dozens of newspapers and jailing outspoken journalists", CPJ said in a press release.
When parliament debated reversing harsh provisions of Iran's notorious press law, Khameneh’i stopped things cold, declaring that any easing of the rules was not "in the interests of the system and the revolution". Today, the press law remains untouched.
Other leaders fighting free press in their countries listed by CPJ are Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine, Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia and Zineal Abedine Ben Ali of Tunisia. PRESS ENEMIES 3501