DETENTION OF JOURNALISTS AND BAN ON NEWSPAPERS DENOUNCED
PARIS-NEW YORK-ROME 11 May (IPS) International and Iranian organisation for the defence of journalists and the press in the world continued to denounce the Islamic Republic for increased repression against the pro-reform newspapers as well as the jailing of two journalists, including Mr. Siamak Poorzand and Mr. Mohsen Mirdamadai, respectively sentenced to eight years and six months imprisonment.
In a letter to the leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, the Rome-based Association of Iranian Journalists Abroad (AIJA) has urged him to release Mr. Poorzand "without condition" and order the re-apparition of all the publications the Judiciary has shut on his order.
According to Mr. Masha’allah Shamsolva’ezin, the veteran journalist who edited four popular newspapers, with the closure of Bonyan and No Rooz, the number of publications shut down in the Islamic Republic has reached the alarming and unprecedented number of 84.
Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF, or Reporters Without Borders) protested today against a six-month prison sentence passed on Mr. Mohsen Mirdamadi, along with a four-year ban on all press activities and a six-month suspension of the reformist daily newspaper "No Rooz" which he edits.
"In the past month, four journalists have been sentenced to prison terms and Iranian courts have stepped up their harsh intimidation of the reformist media", said RSF secretary-general Robert Ménard in a letter to the head of the country's conservative judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmood Hashemi-Sharoodi.
"We demand that these convictions be annulled and that all journalists in jail be released", he said.
Eleven journalists are currently imprisoned in Iran and eight publications have been suspended since the beginning of this year, the Paris-based press watchdog noted.
Mr. Mirdamadi, who is also chairman of the Iranian parliament's Foreign Affairs and National Security Commission, was given the three sentences by the Teheran press court on 8 May, as well as a fine of two million Rials (about 25,000 euros). He was convicted on the basis of 200 formal complaints that included "insulting senior figures" and "publishing lies," although no details were given of the charges.
The RSF has "awarded" Mr. Khameneh'i as one of the world’s most dangerous predators of the freedom of the press.
For its part, the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) protested to the sentences passed by a Tehran court against Mr. Mirdamadi.
In the latest wave of Iran's ongoing crackdown on the press, the country's conservative Press Court has sentenced two journalists to prison and banned three newspapers during the last two weeks, the CPJ said Saturday in a press release issued in New York.
CPJ learned that on May 8, Iran's Press Court convicted Mohsen Mirdamadi, a
Member of Parliament and director of the leading reformist daily, No Rooz, of insulting the state, publishing lies, and insulting Islamic institutions in articles the paper had published.
On 4 May, the Press Court banned the daily "Iran", which is published by the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), after it ran an article in April saying that Prophet Mohammad enjoyed listening to female singers.
The same day, the Press Court also banned the daily "Bonyan". According to a source in Iran, the court cited the Precautionary Measures Law, a pre-revolutionary statute that allows courts to seize "instruments used for committing crimes."
The court said that "Bonyan", widely known for its critical reporting, had stolen its name and logo from a provincial student weekly bearing the same name.
But a source told CPJ that the charge appeared to be a pretext to punish the paper for its reformist editorial stance.
The ban against Iran was lifted the following day, but the privately owned Bonyan remains closed.
Last week, Iranian authorities sentenced Ahmad Zeidabadi, a leading reformist journalist, to 23 months in prison. He was originally charged in August 2000 after giving a series of lectures at several Iranian universities.
However, the verdict in the case came after he made controversial statements about the conflict in the Middle East in an interview in Bonyan several weeks ago.
Dr Karim Lahiji, the president of the Iranian League for the Defence of Human Rights, made the rapprochement between the sentence against Mr. Poorzand and closure of new publications with the recent vote of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, absolving Iran of having a special representative to check the situation of human rights in that country.
"The sentence against Mr. Poorzand, who was tried behind closed doors in an undisclosed court as well as the ban imposed on two newspapers and jail sentence against journalists are all new reflections of the repression the Islamic Republic is treating the press following the vote of Human Rights Commission in Geneva", he told Iran Press Service.
The National Union of Journalists of the UK and Ireland has denounced the jailing of 71-year-old Iranian journalist Siamak Poorzand as an outrage against press freedom.
On 3 May Poorzand was sentenced at a secret trial to eight years imprisonment for having "undermined state security through links with monarchists and counter-revolutionaries". "He admitted all charges and said he would not defend himself". Relatives of Poorzand have said that they believe he could only have "confessed" under duress.
Poorzand, who ran a theatrical and artistic centre and contributed to many newspapers that have been closed, disappeared in November last year. It was several weeks before his family learned that he had been arrested.
Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the NUJ, said: "Of all the assaults on press freedom around the world, this is one of the most revolting. The manner of Mr Poorzand’s detention and alleged confession to absurd charges are an outrage. We urge the UK and other European governments to use their diplomatic contacts with the regime to protest".
The NUJ has been campaigning actively in defence of Iranian journalists. In January this year the union made public a video tape of state employees and others being mistreated in prison as part of an attempt by the regime to distance itself from the serial murders of journalists in 1999.
Jeremy Dear said: "The tape showed the shocking methods that this regime is prepared to use against its own employees. It is horrifying to imagine what methods it has used against someone such as Mr Poorzand, who has worked to uphold press freedom that is anathema to the regime".
In a letter to Iranian and international officials and personalities, the family of Mr. Poorzand has expressed concern about his situation and urged them to do all they can to allow him medical treatment in a hospital.
According to informed sources, the last time his sister saw him, he appeared to be very weak and unstable, holding a handkerchif in front of his mouth, as to hide he had lost some of his teeth.
Mr. Poorzand was denied lawyer, the authorities saying that they have provided him with a court-committed one the family has not seen yet.
Mr. Poorzand’s wife, Mrs. Mehranguiz Kaar, herself a noted lawyer who is now undergoing medical check up in New York noted that charges raised against her husband are of national security nature and in this case, he should have been tried in an Islamic revolution court, not in an ordinary tribunal, as reported by "Iran" daily last week. ENDS JOURNALISTS ARRESTED 11502