Call For Release of Four Journalists Held by
Iran
Reporters Without Borders
March 14, 2007
Reporters Without Borders today called for the release of a total of four
journalists held in Iran’s Kurdish northwest (Eastern Kurdistan) after the
arrests of Kia Jahani on 24 February in Marivan and Aso Salah on 8 March in
Kurdish city of Sanandaj. Two others arrested earlier, Adnan Hassanpour and
Kaveh Javanmard, are still being held without being allowed visits.
“The situation of journalists in the Kurdish part of Iran has become even
worse,” the press freedom organisation said. “With increasing frequency, they
are being arrested arbitrarily and held incommunicado without the authorities
feeling it necessary to inform their families or provide them with a lawyer. We
call for their immediate release as no evidence of any guilt has been produced.”
Jahani, who was arrested without any reason being given on 24 February in
Marivan (near the western border with Iraq), has for many years been a
contributor to the Kurdish-language television station Kurdistan TV.
Salah, who works for the weekly Didgagh, was arrested 12 days later by
intelligence officials in Sanandaj, the capital of Kudistan province, while
covering an authorised demonstration marking International Women’s Day. As he
suffers from asthma, his family took his asthma medicine to the prison at the
request of the prison authorities.
Hassanpour, a journalist with the weekly Asou who was arrested outside his home
on 25 January, is still being held in Mahabad prison without being able to
receive visits from his family or lawyer. There is also no word of Javanmard of
the weekly Karfto, who has been held in the main Sanandaj prison since his
arrest on 18 December. It is not known what charges may have been brought
against either of these two journalists.
The Press Authorisation and Surveillance Commission, an offshoot of the Ministry
of Culture and Islamic Orientation, meanwhile suspended the Kurdish-language
weekly Payam Kurdistan on 11 March for “spreading separatist ideas” after its
latest issue included a map of “Greater Kurdistan.”
The Islamic Republic of Iran continues to be the Middle East’s biggest prison
for journalists, with a total of seven detained.
