(PEN Canada/IFEX) – The following is a 9 June 2005 PEN Canada press release: PEN Canada Alarmed over Disappearance of Journalist Akbar Ganji Toronto, June 9, 2005 – PEN Canada has expressed alarm over the reported disappearance of Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji. In a letter sent today to Iranian president Mohammad Khatami, PEN Canada president […]
(PEN Canada/IFEX) – The following is a 9 June 2005 PEN Canada press release:
PEN Canada Alarmed over Disappearance of Journalist Akbar Ganji
Toronto, June 9, 2005 – PEN Canada has expressed alarm over the reported disappearance of Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji.
In a letter sent today to Iranian president Mohammad Khatami, PEN Canada president Haroon Siddiqui wrote that the news of Ganji’s disappearance has heightened an already dire situation for the outspoken journalist. The wife of the PEN Canada Honorary Member, Massoumeh Shafii, believes that her husband was abducted by Iranian security forces.
“We therefore urge that, if [Ganji] is being held by the authorities, his whereabouts be disclosed and that he be treated humanely and provided with any necessary medical care,” Siddiqui wrote.
Ganji had been granted a provisional release from prison on May 29, 2005. He was to undergo a series of medical examinations in order to treat several ailments while in prison.
The investigative journalist was arrested on April 21, 2000, upon his return to Iran after attending an academic and cultural conference on Iran in Berlin. He was charged with “insulting religious edicts and figures, threatening national security and dissemination of propaganda against the Islamic system.”
Ganji is most famous for his articles on a series of murders of Iranian writers in the late 1990s, which went as far as to implicate former president Rafsanjani and other high-ranking officials.
A six-year prison sentence was handed down against Ganji in July 2001.
About PEN Canada:
PEN Canada is a centre of International PEN that campaigns on behalf of writers around the world persecuted for the expression of their thoughts. In Canada, it supports the right to free expression as enshrined in Section 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
