21 May 10 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Film-maker Jafar Panahi has been imprisoned in Iran since 1 March after the government accused him of making a documentary about last year’s presidential election. He was to be on the Palme d’Or judging panel at the Cannes film festival this week where fellow Iranian film-maker, Abbas Kiarostami, called his arrest an “attack on art” and launched an appeal for his release on 18 May. Panahi has reportedly begun a hunger strike until he is allowed to meet with a lawyer, see his family and be released.
17 May 10 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost, Uncategorized
The Kuwaiti media have been banned from reporting on the dismantling of an Iranian spy network by prosecutor-general Hamed Saleh Al-Othman. The spy ring— which was publicly revealed on 1 May— was gathering information about Kuwaiti and US military bases on behalf of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Al-Othman told Al-Aan newspaper that he blocked further reporting of the case in order to allow the police and judicial authorities to investigate it without additional pressure. Reporters without Borders called the ban “a serious obstruction of investigative reporting.”
10 May 10 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features
Maziar Bahari sentenced by Iran in absentia — 13 years and 6 months in jail and 74 lashes
The Canadian-Iranian reporter, Iran correspondent for Newsweek magazine, was released on bail by the Iranian authorities in October 2009 and left the country. Index on Censorship, Newsweek, Committee to Protect Journalists and Canadian Journalists for Free Expression campaigned for Bahari’s release after he was detained on 21 June 2009 in the aftermath of last year’s disputed presidential election during Iran’s post-election crackdown on the media. He discovered his sentence yesterday, after Iran’s security services informed his family.
Five years imprisonment for gathering and conspiring against the security of the state (for taking part in the demonstrations after the presidential election).
Four years for collecting and keeping secret and classified documents (for keeping a court document regarding Freedom Movement of Iran given to him by one of the leaders of the group).
One year for propagating against the system (for Bahari’s post-election Newsweek articles).
Two years for insulting the Supreme Leader (for a private e-mail he sent in which Bahari said Khamenei has learnt from the Shah’s mistakes).
Two years and 74 lashes for disrupting public order (for filming the Basij shooting at people).
Six months for insulting the president (for someone tagging a picture of Ahmadinejad kissing a boy on Bahari’s Facebook wall. The authorities said that the picture implied that the president was a homosexual).
Bahari expressed surprise that none of the charges he was interrogated over – including espionage, paving the way for a velvet revolution, contacts with Jews and Israelis, improper sexual conduct and connecting various reformist leaders to western governments – are mentioned in the sentence.
He suggested the sentence and the wave of other sentences and arrests made on the eve of the first anniversary of the election are supposed to scare people from taking part in the demonstrations, and from reporting them.
Bahari recently headed the Our Society Will Be A Free Society campaign, with events aimed at building pressure for the release of writers and journalists in prison in Iran.
27 Apr 10 | Magazine, Middle East and North Africa, News and features
Writer and academic Fred Halliday died this week at the age of 64. Halliday, a keen analyst of Middle East and Iranian affairs, had been a contributor to Index on Censorship. In this article for Index from 2001, Halliday surveys the scene before Iran’s elections.
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