IFEX - News from the international freedom of expression community
--------------------
UPDATE - IRAN
8 April 2008
Four newspapers suspended by authorities for "failing to publish regularly"
SOURCE: Reporters sans frontières (RSF), Paris
(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders condemns the arbitrary suspension of
four newspapers on 6 April 2008 for "failing to publish regularly." It
brings the number of newspapers banned by the Commission for Press
Authorisation and Surveillance since the start of the year to 17.
The press freedom organisation also deplores the intelligence ministry's
repeated harassment of the wife of Afghan journalist Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, who
has been imprisoned in the city of Qom, 150 km southwest of Tehran, since 4
March.
"The independent media are regularly subjected to arbitrary treatment by
the authorities, who take advantage of repressive laws to silence them,"
the organisation said. "The ban on these four publications is just the
latest example. At the same time, the security apparatus imposes silence on
the families of imprisoned journalists. Those who report the arrests of a
relative to the media, especially the foreign media, are exposing
themselves to the possibility of punishment."
The four publications banned on 6 April by the Commission for Press
Authorisation and Surveillance, an offshoot of the Ministry of Culture and
Islamic Guidance, were "Sobh Varzesh", "Imen Gostar", "Laleh" and "Gozineh
Pjoheshjar Jahan". The ban was imposed under article 16 of the press law,
which sanctions "publishing irregularly."
Nasab's wife, Sahar Mohaqiq Nasab, was threatened by intelligence ministry
agents and was told she would be arrested herself if she kept asking for
news about him. She still does not know what her husband, the publisher of
the monthly "Haqoq-e-Zan" (Farsi for "Women's Rights"), is charged with. He
is not being allowed visits and has not yet been able to see a lawyer. The
special religious court that is to try him has not approved the lawyers
proposed by the Association for the Defence of Prisoners' Rights.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are
both on the list of "Press Freedom Predators" which Reporters Without
Borders updates every year.
http://www.rsf.org
http://www.ifex.org/