15 Mar 10 | Events, Middle East and North Africa, Uncategorized
Music and comedy night in support of journalists in Iran – Friday 19th March 630pm-830pm
FREEWORD CENTRE, 60 FARRINGDON ROAD, LONDON EC1R 3GA
To reserve a place email [email protected]
Or call 020 7324 2570
Journalists Maziar Bahari and Masih Alinejad will be speaking in support of journalists in prison in Iran.
PLUS comedians Peyvand Khorsandi and Jodi Kamali
AND musicians Sahra Band and Roshi
MC Fari Bradley, Resonance FM
Index on Censorship has joined with leading international free expression groups to call for the release of Iranian journalists, bloggers and writers. Please show your support by signing the petition on the campaign site or Facebook and come to the campaign’s event this Friday at the Free Word Centre for an evening of Iranian music and comedy at the Free Word Centre, 60 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3GA. To reserve a place email [email protected] Or call 020 7324 2570
SIGN THE PETITION
http://www.oursocietywillbeafreesociety.org
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/petitions/398
03 Mar 10 | Uncategorized
The Iranian authorities have banned a daily newspaper and a weekly magazine as a crackdown on reformist media escalated in the Islamic republic.
Iran’s press watchdog revoked the licences of Etemad and Irandokht on the same day that security forces arrested the 49-year-old film-maker Jafar Panahi, who is a vocal supporter of the opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.
The newspaper Etemad was banned for the first time in its eight-year history after publishing remarks made by the former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami, which suggested that the country is facing a “crisis”, the Iranian Labor News Agency reported.
Mohammed Ali Ramin, Iran’s deputy culture minister for media affairs, suggested that the ban was a “bitter decision” for the government to take.
“After repeated warnings and the persistence of the paper in breaching the regulations, the watchdog had no choice but to ban it,” Ramin said.
Specifically, the board said that the newspaper had violated press law number six, forbidding media organisations from revealing secret orders or publishing discussions of parliament’s closed sessions and trials.
The Press Supervisory Board also prohibited the publication of Irandokht; a magazine run by the family of the opposition leader Mehdi Karrubi that started out as a women’s weekly, but has since altered its focus to cultural and political issues.
No official reason has been given for this decision, but the Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad told CNN that the magazine was closed after Karrubi’s wife Fatameh sent a letter to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini accusing him of abusing her son Ali.
The reporter for Etemad-e Melli said: “Now we are journalists without newspapers, and we really need help for what is happening in Iran to be heard.”
The press supervision body has been busy since the disputed re-election of president Ahmadinejad in June, with the leading business daily Sarmayeh banned in November and the popular publication Etemad-e Melli closed in August.
Highlighting the perilous situation facing many Iranian reporters, Ghanbar Naderi, a journalist for the Iran Daily, told Al Jazeera that continuing closures in the media have created a culture of self-censorship.
He said: “In these sensitive times, with the country under constant political pressure, as a journalist your first mistake will be your last.”
In a further move reflecting the continuing crackdown on dissenters, Jafar Panahi, one of Iranian cinema’s most prominent directors, is
being held at an undisclosed location after he was arrested with his wife, daughter and 15 guests at his home on Monday evening.
These arrests come just days after Iranian authorities released six journalists from Tehran’s Evin prison, including Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, spokesman for the Iranian Committee for the Defence of Freedom of the Press.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists disclosed last month that Iran is now “far and away the world’s leading jailer of journalists”. This news follows the launch of a new campaign by a number of leading press freedom and free expression groups, including Index on Censorship entitled Our Society Will be a Free Society, which aims to release the journalists and writers imprisoned by Iranian authorities.
01 Mar 10 | Campaigns, Middle East and North Africa, News and features
In response to the brutal crackdown against journalists and writers in Iran, Index on Censorship is joining a coalition of leading press freedom and free expression groups to launch a petition drive calling for the release of those imprisoned.
More journalists and writers are now in prison in Iran than in any other country in the world – of around 60, 47 of them are journalists. “I know my jailers in Iran were aware of the depth of international concern,” said Newsweek correspondent Maziar Bahari, who was jailed for 118 days in Iran. “We need to raise a similar outcry on behalf of the more than 60 journalists, writers and bloggers jailed there today. Adding your name to this petition will help us deliver the message that people around the world are watching.”
The “Our Society Will Be A Free Society” campaign – a reference to a pledge made by Ayatollah Khomeini on the eve of the 1979 Revolution – is gathering signatures for an online petition to be sent to Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad on 20 March, the Iranian New Year.
To sign the petition, visit the campaign website or access our page on Facebook.
“This is a reminder that freedom was an aspiration at the very heart of the Revolution and that it’s time for the Iranian government to honour its commitment to human rights – it can start by releasing the journalists, writers and bloggers in prison,” said Jo Glanville, editor of Index on Censorship’s quarterly magazine.
“The Iranian government is counting on the world to forget about the journalists and writers who have been imprisoned under cruel conditions,” said Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. “We can’t allow that to happen.”
Index on Censorship, the Committee to Protect Journalists, PEN, Reporters Sans Frontières, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, Article 19, WAN, the International Federation of Journalists and the International Publishers Association have joined forces for “a sense of shared, urgent concern for the welfare of journalists, writers and bloggers and a profound alarm over the situation for free expression in Iran”.
The “Our Society Will Be A Free Society” campaign will run through the Iranian New Year, with events aimed at building pressure for the release of writers and journalists in prison in Iran continuing in North America and Europe through the spring.
For more information about the campaign and to find links to upcoming events and relevant articles please visit www.oursocietywillbeafreesociety.org.
17 Feb 10 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features
Campaign groups call on Iran to reconsider after envoy reverses its position and withdraws invite to UN rapporteurs
February 17, 2010, Geneva – Organisations supporting journalists, writers and publishers in Iran have called on Tehran officials to open the door to the United Nations’ special rapporteurs on human rights – including its expert on freedom of expression Frank la Rue.
Resisting calls here for an international investigation into post-election abuses of human rights in Iran, Tehran’s envoy Mohammad Javad Larijani told both diplomats and the media on Monday that there was a “standing invitation” for the UN’s special rapporteurs to visit Iran and investigate claims of rights abuse – only to reverse his position today.
Listen to a recording of today’s UN meeting here.
The rapporteurs should be allowed to visit the country at the earliest opportunity, said representatives of the “Our Society Will Be a Free Society” campaign, in Geneva to observe the UN Human Rights Council‘s review of Iran’s record this week.
The campaign is a joint initiative of Index on Censorship, Committee to Protect Journalists, PEN, Reporters Sans Frontières, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, and the International Publishers Association.
Named for a pledge the Ayatollah Khomenei made during the 1979 Iranian revolution to protect freedom of expression and the press, the campaign will run through 20 March 2010, Iranian New Year (Nowruz), with events aimed at building pressure for the release of writers and journalists in prison in Iran continuing through the spring.
“Mr la Rue and the other UN rapporteurs should not be prevented by the Iranian government from making their own independent assessment of the situation,” said Alexis Krikorian of the International Publishers Association.
“The UN rapporteurs should go to Iran as soon as possible. Certainly we should hear their reports before the UN even starts to consider Iran’s bid to become a member of the Human Rights Council this May.”
Addressing the hearing before the 47-nation Council’s quadrennial Universal Periodic Review (UPR) procedure, Larijani said Iran was in “full compliance with the relevant international commitments it has taken on in a genuine and long-term approach to safeguard human rights.”
UN human rights experts have already voiced concerns about mass arrests and the abuse of opposition supporters, clerics, journalists, students and others, said Rohan Jayasekera of Index on Censorship “but independent investigation on the ground is crucial”.
The Council’s working group report on Iran, which included concerns raised by diplomats and human rights groups was adopted at noon Wednesday, following Iran’s grilling by other nations at the UN on Monday.
“The UN should have been able to mark Iranian New Year this year by announcing a programme of visits to Iran by its human rights rapporteurs,” said Jayasekera.
“Instead today Iran repudiated its international obligations on human rights and further underlined its unsuitability for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council.”
Freedom of expression and peaceful assembly continue to be undermined by the Iranian regime and human rights defenders face an increasingly precarious situation, said six of the rapporteurs in a statement last year.
The rapporteurs questioned the legal basis for the arrests of journalists, human rights defenders, opposition supporters and demonstrators, saying it was unclear and gave rise to fears of “arbitrary detentions of individuals legitimately exercising their right to freedom of expression, opinion and assembly.”
The statement was issued by: Manuela Carmena Castrillo, Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Working Group on arbitrary detention; Philip Alston, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; Frank la Rue, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; Manfred Nowak, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; Margaret Sekaggya, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; and Santiago Corcuera, Chairperson-Rapporteur of the working group on enforced and involuntary disappearances.
The list of prisoners of conscience currently held in Iranian prisons includes some of Iran’s most distinguished journalists, some of the country’s leading bloggers, and Kian Tajbakhsh, an Iranian-American scholar sentenced in August 2009 to 15 years in prison following a mass trial of 140 activists, intellectuals, and writers accused of fomenting a “velvet revolution.”
Among the journalists are Emadeddin Baghi, also a well known author and human rights defender; Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, an award-winning editor and press freedom advocate; and Shiva Nazar Ahari, a human rights journalist who has been jailed twice in the last eight months. The Committee to Protect Journalists this month announced that the 47 journalists now in prison in Iran are more than any other country on earth has imprisoned at any one time since 1996.
