(WiPC/IFEX) – The following is a WiPC press release: **Updates IFEX alerts of 27 July, 26 July, 21 July, 15 July, 8 July 1999 and others** During the recent period of popular unrest in Iran, several journalists writing for pro-reformist papers have been arrested and/or charged with serious offences. The Writers in Prison Committee has […]
(WiPC/IFEX) – The following is a WiPC press release:
**Updates IFEX alerts of 27 July, 26 July, 21 July, 15 July, 8 July 1999 and
others**
During the recent period of popular unrest in Iran, several journalists
writing for pro-reformist papers have been arrested and/or charged with
serious offences. The Writers in Prison Committee has been monitoring these
events and has grave concern that the right to freedom of expression is
being severely undermined in Iran at this time.
Growing disquiet – especially among the student population – with the
repressive political atmosphere in Iran resulted earlier this month in
several days of demonstrations against the government. The demonstrators
were calling on President Khatami to fulfil his election promises and ensure
that reformist-minded policies were put in place and that all efforts to
stifle free expression ceased forthwith. Their actions were sparked by the
closure of the influential daily newspaper Salam, which was suspended after
it published an article reporting on the government’s investigation into a
series of murders last year of writers and intellectuals. Before, during and
after these protests, several journalists were among hundreds – some say up
to 1400 – detained. Some are in undisclosed locations; others are in the
process of being charged and tried.
The following is a calendar of those events in Iran which have given rise to
PEN’s current concerns:
24 November 1998: Majid SHARIF, an author of five books, and translator of
literary poetry, was found dead after disappearing from his home on 20
November 1998.
9 December 1998: Mohamad MOKHTARI, a writer, journalist and poet, was found
dead in a Tehran Morgue after having being apparently strangled.
11 December 1998: Mohammad Ja’frar POUYANDEH, an essayist and translator of
French literature, was found dead after having been missing for two days.
He, like Mokhtari above, had apparently been strangled and was one of six
writers questioned in October 1998 in connection with a recent initiative to
form a writers’ association called “Kanoun”.
January 1999: The Iranian press reported that the body of Pirouz DAVANI, a
politician and editor-in-chief of the newspaper Pirouz, had been found. The
Government announced that a special commission of inquiry had investigated
the recent deaths and found a rogue element of the security forces to be
responsible. Arrests had been made and suspects were said to be awaiting
trial.
16 and 19 June 1999: Heshmatollah TABARZADI and Hossein KASHANI, two
journalists, were arrested, detained in Evin prison and denied access to
family or lawyers. Tabarzadi is the chief editor and Kashani the director of
the reformist weekly Hoviyat-e-Khich, a newspaper strongly critical of the
government. According to Amnesty International, Tabarzadi was reportedly
tortured when the two men were taken to an unknown place of detention and
held there for twenty days. (They have since apparently been returned to
Evin prison).
Late June 1999: The chief suspect who is alleged to have organized the
series of murders in late 1998, a man named Saeed Emami, was reported to
have committed suicide in prison; the news was greeted by many newspapers in
Iran with suspicion and disbelief.
7 July 1999: The influential daily newspaper Salam was suspended after it
published an article reporting on the government’s investigation into the
1998 murders. A journalist for the paper, Morad VEISSI, was arrested and the
paper’s director, Mohamad KHOEINIA, was charged.
7 July 1999: Proposed amendments to the Press Law were accepted by the
Iranian parliament. According to the draft bill, journalists could be forced
to reveal their sources and risk harsh judgements from the revolutionary
courts if found guilty of infringing the new law. The proposed bill also
allows for swifter suspensions of independent newspapers.
8 July 1999: A peaceful protest near the university hostels in Tehran was
broken up by armed members of the vigilante student group Ansar-e Hezbollah,
who were later joined by the security forces. The students had been
protesting the closure of the daily newspaper Salam and the proposed new
press law.
8 – 16 July 1999: The demonstrations increased in size and spread to other
towns after an attack on the student residences in which at least one person
was killed. At least two more people died in the days of unrest that
followed.
12 July 1999: President Khatami made a public statement denouncing the
student protestors and calling for the “rule of law”.
13 July 1999: A number of Tabarzadi’s associates (see under June above) –
including Mohammad Massod SALAMATI, Seyed Djavad EMAMI and Parviz SAFARI –
were also arrested on or around 13 July. Their whereabouts are still unknown
and Amnesty International has expressed concern for their safety. One week
earlier, they had been briefly detained during a student demonstration in
Tehran in protest at recent press restrictions in Iran and the arrests of
Heshmatollah Tabarzadi and Hossein Kashani.
15 July 1999: The Interim Executive Committee of the Iranian Writers’
Association released a statement in defence of those students peacefully
demonstrating for the right to “freedom of thought and expression for all
without exception”. The statement called on the government to try openly the
perpetrators of the November/December 1998 killings, to release all those
held for their participation in the protests, and to lift all banning orders
on newspapers and remove the restrictive press law amendments that had been
passed by the Parliament. It concluded: “We hope that civil institutions
will grow in our country and that the freedom of thought and expression will
become a fundamental part of our society.”
20 July 1999: Kazem SHOKRI, editor of the national daily Sobh-e Emrooz, was
arrested and charged by the Tehran Justice Department with having
authorised the publication of an article offensive to the Koran. On the same
day Saeed Hajarian, the managing director of the newspaper, was also
summoned to court over an article entitled “Two parallel lines do not cross
unless God wills it”, but was later released on bail.
25 July 1999: Mohamad KHOEINIA, director of Salam, is found guilty of
publishing an allegedly classified document, slandering provincial officials
and linking members of parliament to the rogue secret agent accused of the
November/December 1998 murders. A final judgement is yet to be handed down,
however, and Khoeinia has not yet been imprisoned. Salam remains closed.
***
The Writers in Prison Committee joins the Iranian Writers’ Association in
its call for the right to freedom of expression to be upheld in Iran. It
protests against the detention of the journalists Kazem SHOKRI, Heshmatollah
TABARZADI and Hossein KASHANI and all others held merely for the peaceful
expression of their views and calls for their immediate and unconditional
release. It also protests against the sentencing of Mohamad KHOEINIA, the
closure of various newspapers, and all such attempts to stifle free and open
debate in the country. It calls on President Khatami to make a firm
statement supporting an end to a long pattern of severe censorship in Iran
and to take immediate steps to redress the wrongs done to those who have
done nothing more than voice their criticism of this censorship. It urges
that the various unsolved killings of writers and journalists be
investigated, and that those found guilty of complicity in these killings,
whoever they may be, be made to face the full penalty of the law.
Appeals To
His Excellency Hojjatoleslam val Moslemin Sayed Mohammad Khatami
The Presidency, Palestine Avenue
Azerbaijan Intersection
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Fax: +98 21 64 66 415
E-mail page: http://year2001.president.gov.ir/email007.html
Please copy appeals to the source if possible.
