Jila Baniyaghoob, the editor of Canon Zeman Irani, was freed on 19 August 2009 on payment of 100 million toman in bail.
(RSF/IFEX) – Jila Baniyaghoob, the editor of Canon Zeman Irani ( http://irwomen.net ), a news website that focuses on women’s rights, was freed on 19 August 2009 on payment of 100 million toman (approx. 90,000 euros) in bail. This year’s winner of the “Courage in Journalism” prize, which is awarded by the International Women’s Media Foundation, she was arrested at her home on 20 June together with her husband, Bahaman Ahamadi Amoee, who writes for various pro-reform publications. Although there has been no confirmed news of Amoee since his arrest, Reporters Without Borders has been told he is still in solitary confinement in section 209 of Tehran’s Evin prison.
Ahmad Zeydabadi, a journalist who was arrested on 14 June, has been hospitalised because of the effects of a hunger strike he pursued for 17 days. “I was kept in a cell that was like a tomb for 35 days, hearing nothing from outside, seeing no one,” Zeydabadi told his family. He only called off the hunger strike because a doctor in Evin prison told him no one knew about it. His family says it is very worried about his state of health.
