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Monday,
10 September, 2001, 15:26 GMT 16:26 UK
Iran journalist loses prison appeal
Mr Behnoud (second
from right) in court
By the BBC's Jim Muir in Tehran
A prominent
Iranian journalist and frequent contributor to the BBC's Persian
language service has had a prison sentence of 19 months upheld by
an appeals court in Tehran.
Massoud Behnoud
was arrested in August of last year and sentence was passed in February
after he was found guilty of spreading lies and insulting the Islamic
system and its leaders.
Mr Behnoud -
one of Iran's most distinguished journalists -was held for five
months after his arrest before being released on bail.
Since his sentence
was passed, he has been at liberty while his appeal was considered.
But now the
Tehran appeals court has endorsed the original sentence of 19 months
in jail and a fine amounting to nearly $2,500.
The court also
said he should begin serving his sentence now.
Long sentences
Mr Behnoud is
the latest in a long series of journalists and other liberal figures
who have been given long prison sentences for airing their views.
Hard-liners
fiercely oppose Iran's reformist press
Dozens of newspapers in which they did so have also been closed
down on the orders of the judiciary, which is widely regarded here
as a bastion of right-wing conservative power.
Recent court
decisions upheld even longer sentences on two translators involved
in a controversial conference in Berlin last year.
Khalil Rostamkhani
had been given nine years in jail, and Saeed Sadr 10 years.
The judiciary
has also been behind a spate of recent public punishments, floggings
and hangings which have been seen as reinforcing the hard line and
countering a creeping social liberalization.
The public punishments,
especially the floggings, have caused bitter controversy in both
political and religious circles with reformists arguing that they
were causing great damage both at home and abroad.
It has been
announced that such punishments are now to be carried out only by
the police rather than Islamic volunteers.
That and other
developments indicate that the sudden spate of floggings in recent
weeks may die away, at least in the capital.
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