Iran
Iranian journalist pays a visit to media prison againPosted Feb 16 2011
Taghi Rahmani has spent more than 16 years total in Iranian prisons. He was arrested from his home in Tehran on Wednesday, Feb. 9 and taken to an unknown location, according to Reporters Without Borders.
Several other journalists and bloggers have been summoned for questioning by the Revolutionary Guards – an elite branch of Iran’s military – and the intelligence ministry before a demonstration scheduled for Monday, Feb. 14, by government opponents, said Reporters Without Borders. Iran marked the 32nd anniversary of their revolution on Feb. 11.
Rahmani’s wife and fellow journalist has been seriously ill since her release from prison in July 2010. Iran currently has at least 30 journalists detained, making it “the world’s biggest prison for the media,” said Reporters Without Borders.
The Committee to Protect Journalists delivered a petition to Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations that urges an end to the media crackdown. “While the Iranian government continues its intensive campaign to restrict the flow of information by repressing independent media, leading journalists such as Carl Bernstein, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Hollman Morris, David Remnick, Roxana Saberi and David Rohde are among the 1,102 signatories of the petition.
“Reporting the news does not amount to heresy or constitute propaganda against the state,” read the CPJ petition. “A government that keeps its citizens in the dark by blocking independent journalism is violating its people’s right to information about their daily lives. An uninformed society cannot be a ‘free society,’ as promised by the revolution.”
On Feb. 7, Reporters Without Borders learned that Iranian journalist Siamak Qaderi has been sentenced to four years in prison and 60 lashes on charges of anti-government propaganda and disseminating false information on his blog.
Qaderi is a former reporter for the government news agency Islamic Republic News Agency but was dismissed after he interviewed homosexuals and posted the interviews on his blog, according to Reporters Without Borders. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in 2007 that there were no homosexuals in Iran.