Two more journalists detained in current wave of arrests - Appeal court upholds three-year jail sentence for another journalist

The arrests of freelance journalist Amir Teirani on 16 June and Mohamed Reza Bouzeri, a journalist with Golestan-e-Iran, on 18 June - both for allegedly inciting students to demonstrate - has brought to the number of journalists detained since 14 June to at least eight. They also brought the total of journalists held in Iran to at least 16, making it the biggest prison for journalists in the Middle East. Reporters Without Borders called for the immediate release of all them. Meanwhile, an appeal court on 17 June upheld a prison sentence passed in April on journalist Ali-Reza Jabari, a contributor to several independent newspapers including Adineh, but reduced the term from four to three years. As well as a prison term, Jabari had been sentenced on 19 April to 253 lashes and a fine of 6 million rials (about 1,000 euros). The official charge against Jabari was "consuming and distributing alcoholic drinks, adultery and immoral acts" although his real offence was to belong to a writers' association and contribute articles to news websites based abroad. Following expressions of concern by Reporters Without Borders about the location of journalists detained in the past 10 days, Tehran state prosecutor Said Mortazavi reported that Teirani and Taghi Rahmani, a journalist with the weekly Omid-e-Zangan, Reza Alijani, editor of the monthly Iran-e-Farda and winner of the Reporters Without Borders - France Foundation press freedom prize in 2001, and Hoda Saber, a member of Iran-e-Farda's senior staff were being held in Evine prison in Tehran. The daughter of Ensafali Hedayat, a journaliste with Salam arrested on 16 June in Tabriz university in the north of the country, learned that he was detained in Tabriz's main prison. He was beaten by police at the time of his arrest. Prosecutor Mortazavi also told the family of journalist Amin Bozorgian, which had received no word of him since his arrest on 15 June, that he was officially detained. The prosecutor threatened the families of detained journalists (including the wives of Rahmani and Alijani) for saying they had been detained illegally. Mohsen Sazgara, the editor of the website Alliran and the (closed) reformist daily Jameh, has been on hunger strike since his arrest on 15 June. He has a heart ailment and the state of his health is a matter of concern. His wife has also started a hunger strike to protest against her husband's imprisonment. All of these journalist are alleged to have incited students to revolt. Many anti-government protests have been staged around the main university campus in Tehran and other major cities since 10 June, in the course of which police and militiamen in civilian dress have targeted journalists. The regime has also put heavy pressure on the ISNA and ILNA news agencies, which have been covering these events closely. The relatives of Abbas Abdi, a journalist with Salam who has been imprisoned since 4 November 2002, have meanwhile voiced concern about his health. Abdi, who is being held in a separate cell and who was in poor health at the time of their last prison visit, told them he nonetheless planned to go on hunger strike if he was not granted a few days of release, as required by the Iranian law.