(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to the head of the magistracy, Ayatollah Shahroudi, RSF protested the arrest of Reza Nadimi and Mehdi Amini, from the student magazine “Kavir”, accused of publishing a “blasphemous” article. Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general, asked for their “immediate release.” “Day after day, the number of journalists imprisoned in this country […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to the head of the magistracy, Ayatollah Shahroudi, RSF protested the arrest of Reza Nadimi and Mehdi Amini, from the student magazine “Kavir”, accused of publishing a “blasphemous” article. Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general, asked for their “immediate release.” “Day after day, the number of journalists imprisoned in this country increases as the presidential elections approach,” he added. The organisation also noted that the magazine “Kavir” has been banned and two of the persons in charge of it have already been arrested and imprisoned (see IFEX alert of 14 May 2001).
Since the beginning of the year 2000, forty publications have been banned by the conservative-dominated Iranian courts. RSF considers Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to be one of the world’s thirty worst enemies of press freedom. With twenty-five journalists behind bars Iran is the largest prison for press representatives in the world.
According to information collected by RSF, on 28 May 2001 Reza Nadimi and Mehdi Amini, with the student magazine “Kavir”, were detained pending trial, after appearing in a Tehran court. They were accused of publishing a “blasphemous” article in which they had used an “indecent tone.” Previously on 9 May, Hamid Jafari-Nasrabadi and Mahmoud Mojdeï, respectively student head of the magazine “Kavir” and journalist with the same newspaper, were imprisoned for the same article after being interrogated for several hours by Tehran’s press court judge, who at the same time ordered the ban on the newspaper.
In Iran, someone found guilty of deliberate blasphemy may face the death sentence.
