REPORTERS SANS FRONTIERES PROTEST 11 YEARS VERDICT ON POORZAND
PARIS 11 Jul. (IPS) Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders)
said it was "appalled" at the confirmation of an 11-year jail sentence
passed on 71-year-old journalist Siamak Poorzand for alleged subversion and
anti-state activities.
"The Iranian authorities have once more shown their great contempt for freedom of expression", said the Paris-based RSF’s secretary-general, Robert Ménard.
The organisation was also very concerned, he said, about the number of journalists and editors being summoned by the authorities in recent weeks.
Iran is holding ten journalists in jail, making it the biggest prison for journalists in the Middle East.
The country's leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i, officially called the Guide of the Islamic Revolution, is on the Reporters Without Borders worldwide list of "predators of press freedom".
The Iranian media reported on 7 July that the Teheran appeals court had confirmed the 11-year jail sentence Poorzand received on 3 May for "spying and undermining state security" and "having links with monarchists and counter-revolutionaries".
Mr. Poorzand, the head of an artistic and cultural centre in Tehran, was abducted by security agents on 29 November last year and held in a secret place for four months without access to a lawyer or a doctor. What had angered the authorities was the live reports he would file from Tehran on the worsening situation of the regime and widespread demonstration against the Islamic Republic and its clerical leaders, for Iranian radio and television stations abroad, beaming to Iran by satellite.
His sister said on 14 June that she was very worried about the health and conditions of detention f his brother. She was allowed to see him at the end of May at the Office of Amaken, but permission for family members to visit him is very rare.
The Edareh Amaken section of the capital’s police force, which usually handles "social" offences and is considered close to the intelligence services, has summoned other journalists at the same time.
In a telephone conversation with one of his daughters, Mr. Poorzand beg the family to do nothing to save him and consider him as "a dead man".
Mr. Poorzand’s wife, Mrs. Mehrangiz Kaar, an award winner lawyer and
human rights activist, described the confirmation of the sentence by an Appeal
Court as a "political decision", since the decision was
published by a conservative newspaper shortly after the lawyer, appointed from
office, had appealed to the eleven years sentence.
In the past two months, many editors have been summoned by Court 1410, known as "the press court," including those of the newspapers Mardomsalari, Nowroz, Aftab-e-Yazad and Toseh.
Alireza Farahmand, a journalist with Neshat and Tous, both suspended, Iraj Jamshidi, chief editor of Eghtesad-e-Asia, Esmail Jamshidi, managing editor of the magazine Gardoon, Mrs. Nooshabeh Amiri and her husband, Hooshang Asadi, of the film magazine Gozarech-e-Film, were all questioned for several hours each about their supposed ties with what the regime calls "the subversive cultural front" which Poorzand is accused of belonging to.
The authorities said Mr. Poorzand received 4 billions US Dollars (rpt four billions) from foreign secret services to distribute among Iranian journalists opposed to the Islamic regime. ENDS POORZAND PROTEST 11702