Iran
Radio Farda journalist sentenced for “disseminatinPosted Apr 2 2008
Parnaz Azima, an Iranian-American journalist, was sentenced in abstentia to a one-year jail sentence by Tehran’s 13th Revolutionary Court on March 1. She was accused of disseminating propaganda against Iran through her work at Radio Farda, co-operator Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said. Her plight began in Jan. 2007, when Azima’s passport was confiscated upon her arrival in the country. Four months later, she was charged by the Special Security Bureau of the Revolutionary Court’s public prosecutor’s office for several offences, including propaganda. After posting over half a million dollars in bail, she was given back her passport in September, and left Iran for Prague where she still resides. She plans to appeal the decision, but if she loses, she must decide between losing her mother’s home which she put up as collateral for her bail, or returning to Iran to serve her jail sentence.