(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to the head of the judiciary, Ayatollah Shahroudi, RSF expressed its deep concern about the disappearance of Hamid-Reza Kaviani, journalist with the weekly “Asr-é-Ma”. RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard asked Shahroudi to “open an inquiry into this incident, which occured two weeks before the presidential elections.” RSF recalled that the journalist […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to the head of the judiciary, Ayatollah Shahroudi, RSF expressed its deep concern about the disappearance of Hamid-Reza Kaviani, journalist with the weekly “Asr-é-Ma”. RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard asked Shahroudi to “open an inquiry into this incident, which occured two weeks before the presidential elections.” RSF recalled that the journalist was kidnapped in April for several hours, and severely beaten. The organisation considers Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to be one of the world’s thirty worst enemies of press freedom. Twenty-three journalists are currently behind bars in Iran.
According to information collected by RSF, on 21 May 2001, in the afternoon, Kaviani disappeared in the street, in Tehran. On 15 April, Kaviani was abducted for several hours and then released. He was hospitalised with serious injuries.
In June 2000, Kaviani appeared before the Special Court for Clergy because of his book “The Pursuit of the Criminals”, which is an investigation into the murders of opponents in late 1998. In this book he quoted, among others, the name of Rouhollah Hosseynian, Revolutionary Court judge and former high-ranking personality in the Intelligence Ministry. The end of 1998 was marked by murders of intellectuals and journalists, which caused an outcry among the population. According to Kaviani and Akbar Ganji (currently in jail), from the daily “Sobh-é-Emrouz”, several members of the Intelligence Ministry were implicated in these murders.
