Concern about Siamak Pourzand

Although several imprisoned journalists have been released on bail in recent weeks, Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières - RSF) said today it was greatly concerned about another, 71-year-old Siamak Pourzand (voir photo), who is ill and whose family has not had news of him for several weeks. RSF secretary-general Robert Ménard meanwhile said he was "outraged" at the "perverse" failure to condemn Iran for the first time in 19 years at the just-ended UN Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva. "Everyone knows the regime abuses freedom of expression on a daily basis," he said. Twelve journalists are in jail in Iran, making the country the main prison for media workers in the Middle East. RSF has placed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the official Guide of the Islamic Republic, on its worldwide list of predators of press freedom. Pourzand's family has not had news of him since his sister visited him at the Amaken detention centre, near Teheran, in early March, when he seemed very ill. On 8 March, he phoned his daughter in the United States to confirm that his trial for subversion had begun two days earlier. He added: "You can count me as dead from now on." He told the government daily newspaper Iran that he accepted all the charges against him and that he had no defence. RSF said at the time it was worried about psychological pressure to make him confess. The trial verdict is expected shortly. Pourzand was seized by security police on 29 November last year. The authorities said nothing about his disappearance and during his first four months in a secret place of detention, he had no access to a lawyer or medical care. As head of Teheran's artistic and cultural centre, he was also a cultural commentator for several reformist newspapers that have since been shut down.