Reporters Without Borders backs journalists' protest calling for press freedom

Reporters Without Borders declared its "firm" support for a sit-in by more than 200 journalists in Teheran on 26 July that it called a "courageous and determined" protest against the suspension a week earlier of reformist daily papers Vaghayeh ettefaghieh and Jomhouriat and against new pressure from the hardline judiciary to purge the media. "Threats to press freedom have increased since the hijacking of last February's parliamentary elections by the regime's hardliners," it said. "The Teheran chief prosecutor, Said Mortazavi, has launched a new effort to silence the press because despite the shutdown of more than 120 reformist newspapers in four years and continual summoning and imprisonment of journalists, the media has successfully fought back." The worldwide press freedom organisation said Mortazavi, who has the full support of the country's Supreme Guide, had drawn up a black list to try to stop journalists on papers that were closed from working on other papers. "This is a clever trick to gag all reformist journalists and we strongly condemn such blackmailing of newspapers by the judiciary," it said. The sit-in was staged in front of the headquarters of the Association of Iranian Journalists and was joined by civil society figures including lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi and the families of imprisoned journalists. An open letter was sent to Culture and Islamic guidance minister Ahmad Masjed Jamei and labour minister Nasser Khaleghi, both reformists, noting that the efforts to silence journalists violated articles 22, 28 and 43 of the national constitution, as well as the right to work and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Vaghayeh ettefaghieh was suspended indefinitely on 17 July for "anti-regime propaganda," publishing "false news" and "insulting the Supreme Guide." The paper, largely staffed by journalists from the reformist daily Yas-e no, which was suspended on 18 February on the eve of the parliamentary elections, has sharply criticised the hardliners and the new parliament dominated by their supporters. The suspension order from Mortazavi mentioned that the paper was staffed by journalists from Yas-e no. Jomhouriat, a new paper which has only published 12 issues, was suspended on 18 July for the same reasons, a few days after publisher Javad Khorami Moaghadam had been summoned by Mortazavi, who demanded in vain that he sack the paper's editor, Emadoldin Baghi, a leading reformist media figure and rights activist.