Akbar Ganji awarded Golden Pen of Freedom

Reporters Without Borders hailed yesterday's decision by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), which represents 18,000 newspapers worldwide, to award its annual press freedom prize, the Golden Pen of Freedom, to leading Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji, who is still in prison. “His remarkable resistance to repression and his steadfast refusal to be silenced, at great personal cost, is an inspiration to journalists everywhere,” the board of the Paris-based WAN said. Ganji's wife, Massoumeh Shafii, said the award showed that her husband's work was recognised and appreciated despite all the attempts by the Iranian authorities to silence him. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 24.10.2005 Wife confirms that Akbar Ganji is confined to special section of Evin prison Reporters Without Borders today reiterated its outrage at the treatment of journalist Akbar Ganji after his wife, Massoumeh Shaffie, and one of his lawyers visited him on 17 October and confirmed that he is still physically and psychologically debilitated after his hunger strike and that he has been put in a “special” wing of Tehran's Evin prison where inmates are often tortured. “As a journalist and prisoner of conscience, Ganji has no place in a high security wing,” the press freedom organisation said. “We again call for his immediate and unconditional release and at the same time we urge the authorities to let independent international organisations visit him at once in Evin prison to verify his condition and the torture allegations.” Shaffie said after visiting her husband that his situation “was even worse that anything we could have imagined.” She also said he need treatment to his left shoulder. Ever since his transfer back to Evin prison from Milad hospital on 3 September, Ganji has been in solitary confinement in this special wing. Only Revolutionary Guards can go there. Former detainees say torture sessions are common in this section of the prison. While the uncertainty continues about the fate of Ganji, the former editor of the weekly Rah-e-No and Iran's leading prisoner of conscience, the intelligence ministry has been summoning independent journalists and representatives of journalists' associations for questioning. Some have been threatened during these interrogation sessions and all have been notified of a ban on talking about the appointment of Revolutionary Guards to key positions in national and local government. Many journalists now fear that a new wave of arrests may be imminent. For the past 15 years, Reporters Without Borders has been operating a sponsorship programme in which international news media are invited to adopt imprisoned journalists. More than 200 news organisations throughout the world are currently sponsoring journalists by repeatedly asking the relevant authorities to free them and by publicising their cases so they will not be forgotten. Akbar Ganji is sponsored by Le Devoir, Nice-Matin and La Montagne.