Back to News

9.08.2002

New attacks of the conservatives against the media

In the one week space, Iranian justice multiplied the offensives against the freedom of the press: suspension of two reforming daily newspapers, threatens of legal proceedings against the IRNA, official news service, and warrant for arrest against the reforming journalist Massoud Behnoud. Reporters without borders worries, in addition, of the arrest of Nasser Zarafshan, lawyer of several families of intellectuals and journalists, assassinated in 1998.

"There is the feeling which these measurements constitute a" declaration of war ", addressed by justice, with the reforming movement. We condemn the whole of these measurements, taken in a context of extreme tension in Iran ", declared Robert Ménard, secretary-general of the organization. "We ask the head of the magistrature, Mahmoud Sharoudi, to reconsider these various sanctions which show, once more, the deep one mistaken of justice with regard to the freedom of expression", it added.

Reporters without borders recalls that the Guide of the Islamic Republic, the ayatollah Ali Khamenei, figure on his list of predatory of the freedom of the press in the world. Ten journalists remain imprisoned in Iran and more than ten publications were closed in less than three months by justice.

August 8, 2002, the reforming daily newspaper Ayineh-3rd-Jonoub was suspended on decision of the court 1410, said court of the press, one week after its first publication. One of the reasons proposed to justify this measurement would be the recent judgment of its director, Mohammad Dadfar, for "propaganda against the mode".

Justice also ordered the suspension of a second reforming daily newspaper, Rouz-3rd-No, because of the similarity of its name with that of a newspaper closed last month, Nowrouz. Rouz-3rd-No had however obtained the accreditation necessary for its publication and was to appear the next week. Saïd Mortazavi, the judge of the court of the press, indicated that the publication of this daily newspaper "could be authorized only at the time when the six month old suspension of the Nowrooz newspaper will be completed".

August 7, the revolutionary tribunal of Teheran threatened to carry felt sorry for against the official news service IRNA following the "illegal" publication of an official statement of a party of opposition, the Movement of release of Iran (MLI). The court explained why this official statement should never have been taken again by the agency because of the nonfinal statute of the judgments pronounced against the party and to its members. At the end of July, the court, indeed, had prohibited this party political and condemned trente-trois of its members to sorrows dde prison. August 3, the MLI had qualified this judgement of "inattendu and astonishing ".

The same day, Nasser Zarafshan, lawyer of the families of intellectuals and journalists assassinated in 1998, was stopped whereas it left at his place. Last March, a military tribunal had recognized it guilty "disclosure of the elements of the file" and had condemned it to five years of prison. The Court of Appeal had confirmed, in July, the verdict. Nasser Zarafshan had been stopped in December 2000 following a speech held in the town of Chiraz. It had affirmed that the services of information had assassinated, at the end of 1998, in Teheran, five intellectuals Iranian: Majid Charif, leader-writer for monthly magazine Iran-3rd-Farda, the writer-journalists Mohamad Mokhtari and Mohamad Jafar Pouyandeh, and a couple, Darioush and Parvaneh Forouhar, all militants for the freedom of expression in Iran. During his lawsuit, the lawyer declared that it had not been able to reveal secret classified information since the services of information had admitted their implication in these murders.

August 5, 2002, Iranian justice launched a warrant for arrest against Massoud Behnoud, collaborator of Adineh, Neshat and Asr-3rd-Azadegan. The reforming journalist had been stopped by the Iranian authorities on August 9, 2000 and had been released in bond on December 16, little before the opening of his lawsuit. He was marked in particular of "atteinte to national safety ", "co-operation with foreign media" and of "insulte towards the supreme Guide ", the ayatollah Ali Khamenei. September 10, 2001, the Court of Appeal had confirmed the verdict condemning it to nineteen months of prison.