Human rights lawyer banned from leaving the country

Reporters Without Borders is outraged that the Iranian authorities prevented Nasser Zarfashan, a human rights lawyer and staunch defender of free expression, from boarding a flight to Brussels yesterday to participate in a seminar on environmental policy at the European Parliament's invitation. His passport was confiscated. “We condemn the existence of a ‘black list' of people who are banned from leaving the country and whose passports are to be confiscated,” Reporters Without Borders said. “After hounding journalists and cyber-feminists, the government is now going after human rights activists.” Zarfashan's passport was seized at Tehran's Imam Khomeiny airport by security officials, who told him he was forbidden to leave the country as a result of a decision by a Tehran revolutionary court dating back to May 2008. Adopting an ironic tone, Zarfashan told Reporters Without Borders he was “astonished” that the revolutionary court had not summoned him previously. “This decision is just a pretext,” he explained. “My comments about environmental policy could be embarrassing for the Iranian authorities, who have been directly responsible for catastrophes.” A member of the executive committee of the Iranian Writers' Association, he represented the families of a number of Iranian intellectuals and journalists who were murdered in 1998. He was arrested on 7 August 2002 and was sentenced to five years in prison by a military court for saying the intelligence services had murdered five intellectuals. He was released in March 2007.