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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.
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