MORE JOURNALISTS AND POLITICAL ACTIVISTS JAILED IN IRAN
PARIS 11 May (IPS) The Iranian clerical-led Islamic Judiciary, in a new attack on dissidents, imposed Saturday harsh sentences on fifteen journalists and political activists, the heaviest given to members of Nationalist-Religious groups.
The behind the closed-doors sentences immediately drew harsh criticism from Iranian and international press and human rights organisation.Eleven journalists and political activists are currently in detained in Iran, which makes it the biggest prison for journalists in the Middle East.
The verdicts will disappoint those who were expecting a change in judicial attitudes in Tehran, as the European Union has been holding a series of discussions with the government on human rights issues.
"By this unjustifiable act, the Iranian ayatollahs once again proved their total disdain not only for freedom and human rights, but also proved, if proof was needed, that they have no honour in keeping their own words and promises", the Rome-based Association of Iranian Journalists Abroad said in a statement.
Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF, or Reporters Without Borders) voiced its dismay at the prison sentences. "We are appalled by these sentences, which are unacceptable", said Robert Ménard, the Secretary General of the Paris-based international press watch-dog, noting that the journalists were not accorded the right to an open and fair trial.
"The Iranian regime has again shown to what degree any peaceful protest or criticism is unwelcome in that country", he said in a statement issued in Paris.
Hanny Megally, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division of the New York-based Human Rights Watch said the accused were "pawns in the power struggle between Iranian reformists and the conservative clerics who still control the judiciary.
Megally said they had "committed no 'crime' other than to exercise their basic human rights to meet together peacefully and express themselves freely."
The journalists, who were also stripped of their civic rights, were members of the National-Religious Movement, a nationalist and Islamic grouping that has been banned since March 2001, on charges of "plotting against the Islamic Republic by armed struggle, propaganda against the regime et misleading public opinion etc..
The Islamic Revolution courts were created after the Islamic revolution of 1979 and has jurisdiction over matters affecting national security and institutions.
"We call on the European Union, which is currently in negotiations with Iran, to make greater efforts to ensure that human rights are respected there", Ménard added.
The journalists sentenced today were Ezatollah Sahabi of the newspaper Iran Farda (13 years), Taghi Rahmani of the banned weekly Omid Zanjan (10 years), Hoda Saber (10 years plus ban from professional and civic rights), Reza Alijani (6 years) and Sa’id Madani (6 years) of the banned magazine Iran Farda, Ali-Reza Radja’i of Asr Azadegan (4 years) and Morteza Khazemian of the closed daily Fath (4 years).
Mr. Habibollah Peyman, the leader of the Iranian Muslim People Movement was sentenced to 9 years of prison and 10 years of all political and professional activities and Mr. Mohammad Maleki, another political activist was given 7 years in jail.
Rahmani, Madani, Raja’i and Khazemian were among a number of people arrested on 11 March 2001 at the home of Mohammad Bastehneghar, a senior member of the movement, where some 30 people were meeting at the time of the nightly police raid. The next day, the chairman of the Tehran revolutionary court said the detainees had been "seeking to promote a conspiracy against the Islamic regime." They spent periods of varying length in detention before being released pending the trial.
"We deem the Revolutionary Court incompetent to deal with our charges", Mr. Bastehnegar said. He called the verdicts of the tribunal, which deals with crimes involving national security, "illegal and politically motivated".
Alijani, who is his the editor of Iran Farda and who won the RSF - France Foundation prize in 2001 --, was arrested by security agents on 24 February 2001 and was released on bail on 16 December 2001. Saber, who is one of the editors of his magazine, was arrested on 28 January 2001 and was released on bail on 12 March 2002.
Sahhabi, who is the son of one of the founders of the Iran Freedom Movement (IFM) as well as being his newspaper's editor, was arrested on 26 June 2000 on the orders to the Tehran Islamic Revolution Court after attending a conference on the future of reforms in Iran held in Berlin on April 2000.
The Iranian authorities branded the meeting, at which 17 Iranian reformists and political activists had take part as anti-Islamic Republic and arrested all the Iranian participants on their return to Iran.
Other activists condemned are Mas’ood Pedram, Mohammad Mohammadi Ardehali, Mahmood Omrani, Reza Ra’is Toosi and Hoseyn Rafi’i.
Mr. Rahmani said sentences were handed to the accused in less than three hours and pointed out that the verdicts have no relations with the charges, as all the accused had been judged on charges that have no relations with their political activities, a right guaranteed in the constitution of the present regime.
"Since we are all political activists, defending democracy and human rights therefore we should have been judged in open courts with the presence of lawyers and a jury, where we could have justified our actions, but we were denied our elementary rights", he said, adding that they have not yet decided to appeal or not. ENDS JOURNALISTS SENTENCED 11503