Iranian journalist Mohsen Sazgara released from prison

Iranian journalist Mohsen Sazgara was released from prison on Monday, 6 October. Tehran prosecutor-general Saïd Mortazavi had been coming under intensifying local and international pressure to give information about the journalist, whose family had been unable to see him since 14 August. After Sazgara's arrest, his family had agreed to post bail in the sum of six billion Rials (750,000 USD) but the journalist was not freed. Following rumours that the sick and hunger-striking journalist had died, his family had asked to see him and his parents threatened in a letter to Saïd Mortazavi to take the case to international courts if they received no news within 24 hours. Their letter was also published on the reformist news site www.emruz.ws. Denying all rumours about the journalist's state of health, Saïd Mortazavi had said that he was OK and "in full possession of his physical and mental faculties", adding: "The prison authorities deny all rumours about any hunger strike". Mohsen Sazgara twice went on hunger strike, for 56 and 23 days and lost 20kgs during his detention. "During the 110 days of my imprisonment, I must have been hospitalised five times at Baghiatollah hospital. I was still there last Sunday", said Mohsen Sazgara in his first interview. The journalist is expected to be shortly admitted to a private hospital for a full medical check-up. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 03.10.2003 Authorities urged to give medical care to imprisoned journalist Mohsen Sazgara Reporters Without Borders called today on the Iranian authorities to give immediate news and guarantees about the state of health of imprisoned journalist Mohsen Sazgara, a prominent reformist who has heart problems and has been very weakened by a hunger-strike staged since he was jailed on 15 June. Since 14 August, his family has not had word of him and not been able to see him in prison. He was transferred on 2 October from Teheran's Evin prison to Baghiatollah Hospital, where Canadian-Iranian journalist died in July after being beaten at Evin. "We demand that Sazgara's family doctor be allowed to see him," said the press freedom organisation's secretary-general, Robert Ménard. "His life must not be endangered in any way, either health-wise, which would suit some people, or by being beaten, which is not unusual at Evin prison, as the attacks on Kazemi there have shown. "We also call on the European Commission to press the authorities for an inspection of the country's prisons," he said. Sazgara, one of the founders of Iran's reformist press, published the daily papers Jameh, Neshat and Tous, which have all been suspended, and is the founder of the Internet website www.alliran.net, which was closed after his arrest. An outspoken political commentator, he wrote that "the past five years have shown that the country's religious rulers are neither reformable nor effective." He also called the Guide of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, "dictatorial." He was charged with undermining state security, insulting the Guide and making propaganda against the state, and jailed for a year on 27 September. Sazgara is a thorn in the side of the predators of press freedom, who fear that once he gets out of jail he will reveal details of his conditions of detention and the practices of officials inside Evin prison. Several journalists currently in jail are under the supervision of hardline Teheran prosecutor Said Mortazavi and the Guardians of the Revolution and are being held in the same section of the prison where Kazemi was beaten. With 17 journalists in jail, Iran is the biggest prison for journalists in the Middle East.