(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has denounced the arrest of Behzad Zarinpour, assistant editor-in-chief of the Iranian newspaper “Asia” and former editor of “Abrar Eqtesadi” (“Economic News”), on 7 September 2003. Zarinpour was arrested after a search of his home by armed men in civilian clothes. His family has not heard from him since. “Iran remains a […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has denounced the arrest of Behzad Zarinpour, assistant editor-in-chief of the Iranian newspaper “Asia” and former editor of “Abrar Eqtesadi” (“Economic News”), on 7 September 2003. Zarinpour was arrested after a search of his home by armed men in civilian clothes. His family has not heard from him since.
“Iran remains a country where it is best not to practice journalism. Journalists are subject to continuing arrests and imprisonment in solitary confinement in deplorable sanitary conditions,” said Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general. He called on the authorities to tell the family at once where and why Zarinpour was being held and noted that such arrest are illegal.
The poor conditions of detention are leading to hunger strikes by journalists held at Tehran’s Evin prison. One journalist, Mohsen Sazgara, whose in camera trial began on 6 September, has stopped eating and is refusing to take any medicine despite having serious heart problems. Another, Taghi Rahmani, also began a hunger strike to protest his solitary confinement, which is commonly meted out to jailed reformist journalists.
These prisoners are handled by Tehran Prosecutor Said Mortazavi’s team and the Guardians of the Revolution. They are held in the same premises where Canadian-Iranian journalist Zahra Kazemi was beaten and died in July (see IFEX alerts of 27, 26 and 15 August, 29, 23, 22, 17, 16, 14, 11 and 10 July 2003).
Iran is the biggest prison for journalists in the Middle East, with 17 currently in jail.
