Newspaper suspended in latest attack on free expression

Reporters Without Borders is concerned about the situation of imprisoned journalists, especially Kivan Samimi Behbani and Henghameh Shahidi, and reiterates its condemnation of government harassment of the print media, in which the latest case was yesterday’s suspension of former presidential candidate Mehdi Karoubi’s daily, Etemad-e Melli, for publishing reports about torture and rape in Iran’s prisons. “Like every other kind of person jailed since the 12 June presidential election, journalists are being tortured and mistreated,” Reporters Without Borders said. “No one, not even their lawyers, has been able to get information about their cases. The lives of these imprisoned journalists are in danger. We would like representatives of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to be allowed to enter Iran and visit the prisons.” Government agents prevented yesterday’s issue of Etemad-e Melli from leaving the printing press on the evening of 16 August because of an article by Karoubi – one Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s rivals in the June presidential election – responding to attacks and criticism made against him in pro-government newspapers. The criticism was prompted by a 29 July open letter about the mistreatment of young detainees, in which Karoubi wrote: “Young people have been brutally raped and have subsequently suffered depression and seriously psychological and physical problems.” Newspapers that support Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei reacted angrily, accusing him of disseminating “false information.” Yesterday, the Tehran public prosecutor’s office notified the ministry of culture and Islamic orientation’s press office that Etemad-e Melli had been suspended “until further notice” for “publishing illegal reports and articles threatening national security.” The prosecutor’s office has been controlling newspapers since the day after the presidential election. All reports and other forms of content are checked before publication. In the past two months, Etemad-e Melli has been printed several times with columns left blank because articles were censored. As regards detained journalists, Reporters Without Borders is particularly worried about Behbani and Shahidi because it has been told that they have been in solitary confinement since their arrests and are being subjected to a great deal of pressure. The onetime editor of Nameh (“The Letter”), an independent weekly that was suspended in 2005, Behbani is now a freelance journalist. He has not been able to contact his family since his arrest on 13 June. Shahidi, who writes for various pro-reform publications, was arrested on 29 June. Her mother, who has only been able to visit her once, on 13 August, says she is very worried about her health because she has heart problems. Reporters Without Borders has learned that Kaveh Mozafari, an online journalist who was arrested on 9 July, was freed yesterday, while photographers Marjan Abdolahyan and Satyar Emami were freed on 10 August. Documentary filmmakers Mahnaz Mohammadi and Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami, who were arrested on 29 July in south Tehran’s Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, were released in the first few days of August. All these releases are provisional. The journalists can be summoned and re-imprisoned at any time while waiting for their cases to come to trial.