“Iran is the only country that can ban a journalist from writing for the rest of his life,” says Akbar Ganji at Reporters Without Borders headquarters

Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji, who recently emerged from a six-year prison ordeal in Iran, gave a news conference at Reporters Without Borders headquarters in Paris yesterday, condemning the harassment and imprisonment of human rights activists and journalists in his country. Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard, French judge Louis Joinet, who is the former president of the UN human rights commission's working group on arbitrary detention, and Abdolkarim Lahidji, the president of the Iranian League for the Defence of Human Rights and vice-president of the International Human Rights Federation, also took part. After welcoming Ganji to Paris, Ménard talked about the state of press freedom in Iran. “The figures are worrying,” he said. “Twelve journalists and bloggers are currently detained in Iran. Eight newspapers have been suspended since the start of the year (...) We also condemn Tehran prosecutor Said Mortazavi's presence on the UN human rights council that is now meeting in Geneva. Mortazavi has been implicated in the murder of Irano-Canadian photographer Zahra Kazemi and his presence in Switzerland is an insult to the victims of the Iranian government's repression.” After thanking Reporters Without Borders and the other participants for their support and their presence, Ganji addressed the Iranian regime's human rights violations. “Twenty-seven years after the Islamic Republic's installation, the time has come to evaluate its performance,” Ganji said. “For this, I would like to point to certain laws such as the press law, which can be used to ban a journalist from writing for the rest of his life.” Most of the journalists who tried to criticise the regime in the last eight years were accused of making “propaganda” against it, he said. Ganji, who was released from prison on 18 March, said he planned to visit other European countries and then go to the United States to receive a prize. “I was able to leave Iran because the regime did not want to have to deal with the 1,700 news media throughout the world that would definitely have reacted. It would have added a new bone of contention to the nuclear issue.” Asked by a journalist about relations between Iran and the rest of the world regarding Iran's development of nuclear technology, Ganji replied that: “Human rights should be present in all stages of dialogue between Iran and the rest of the world. But unfortunately, petroleum and the economic issues at stake tend to make people forget about human rights.” Joinet said he was very moved by to meet Ganji again, after seeing him during his working group's visit to Tehran's Evin prison in 2003. Joinet described section 209 of Evin prison - the section where Ganji was held - as “Iran's mini-Guantanamo.” Joinet continued: “I have rarely had such an intense moment in my 27 years of fighting for freedom. I noticed during my meeting with Akbar Ganji in 2003 that he never complained. I explained to the authorities that a journalist is a prisoner of conscience and not a political prisoner. He fights for ideas, and that is not the same as being an activist in a political organisation.” Joinet also criticised Mortazavi's presence on the UN human rights council in Geneva. “It was provocation to have appointed him to this post and it was an ever bigger provocation to have invited him,” he added. Lahidji said he had been waiting for Ganji to be freed for years. “The intellectual distinguishes himself from the ordinary public by expressing his views at every opportunity, but unfortunately the freedom to do this varies from one country to another,” Lahidji said, adding that he, too, was delighted to be able to welcome Ganji.