Posted on 10/22/2005 5:18:42 AM PDT by nuconvert
IRAN: MORE JOURNALISTS FALL VICTIM TO WAR ON MEDIA
Tehran, 19 Oct. (AKI) - Another journalist has fallen victim to the wave of media repression sweeping Iran. Issa Saharkhiz, editor of the monthly Aftab (the Sun) and president of an association of Iranian newspaper editors has been banned from working as a journalist or editor for the next six months. Other casualties of the apparent war on the media include Omid Sheikhian, a well-known Iranian blogger sentenced to a year in prison and two lashes and Jalal Jalalizadeh, editor-in-chief of the magazine Sirvan, who has been summoned to Tehran's court over an article on the new president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
On Wednesday the trial was due to start of the editor-in-chief of Doniaye Javan (the World of the Young), Fazilat Khanevadeh (Knowledge and Family), Honar va Zendeghi (Art and Life) and Dampezeshk (The Vet). All are accused of having "incited readers to rebel against the powers of the State."
In the last three years 101 newspapers and magazines have been closed on the orders of magistrates in the capital, according to Naser Sarraj, president of the Court of Tehran, and a dozen of journalists are currently in prison.
Iran's most famous journalist, Akbar Ganji, continues to remain in isolation, his wife, Massoumeh Shafii, told Adnkronos International (AKI). "After 52 days, finally, together with one of his lawyers, I have managed to talk to my husband, who confirmed to me that he is still in a punishment cell with no contact with other prisoners."
Sohrab Soleymani, director-general of the capital's prisons, refused to confirm Shafii's statements. "Foreign powers are trying to transform Ganji's case into a means of putting pressure on the Islamic Republic," he said, in what could be a reference to the European Parliament's recent resolution calling for the journalist's immediate release. "So many other prisoners are in isolation and cannot meet their relatives and I don't understand why the world is only worried about the case of this journalist," he said.
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=14628
18 October 2005
Editor of Kurdish-language weekly sentenced to 18 months in prison
Reporters Without Borders today condemned the 18-month prison sentence that was passed on Mohammad Sedigh Kabovand, the editor of Payam-e mardom-e Kurdestan, a weekly published in Kurdish and Farsi, for “upsetting public opinion and spreading separatist ideas.” The sentence has only now come to light although handed down on 18 August.
“The fact that it has taken us two months to learn of Kabovand’s sentence is a good illustration of the complete lack of transparency with which the Iranian authorities act, especially in the Kurdish part of the country, and the difficulty of getting information from a population that is reluctant to talk for fear of reprisals,” the press freedom organisation said.
The sentence was handed down by a court in Sanandaj, in the western part of Iran’s Kurdish region, which also imposed a five-year ban on Kabovand working as a journalist. The trial took place in the absence of his lawyer, Abdolfattah Soltani, himself arrested on 30 July on the orders of Tehran state prosecutor Said Mortazavi.
A court in Sanandaj ordered the closure of Payam-e mardom-e Kurdestan on 27 June 2004 for “disseminating separatist ideas and publishing false reports.”
Blogger Condemned to 30 Lashes -
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1506817/posts
And these are the people the national Democrat Party and the MSM want to "work" with. Liberal multiculturalism now includes appropriate respect for Iranian corperal punishment. The Fems in the Dem Party never, ever, never, point out the very secondary status of women in the Muslim world. Can't have that! It would be like pointing out that Bill Clinton should not commit rape. Can't have that!
Nor are they interested in Cindy Sheehan's anti-semitism.
No double-standard here.
Its funny journalists from the rest of the world arent cying about whats happening to their brothers in Iran.I guess the liberal agenda is more important than the fraternal ties to journalists. Or rather maybe its like in Iraq when they made a deal with Saddam that they could report as long as they reported Saddams way.Maybe they made a deal with Iran too.
"Maybe they made a deal with Iran too."
Of course they have. If they don't follow the regime's rules, they are kicked out.
I'm not sure which side to take in this war.
And they call this Journalism?
to bad wolf blitzer doesnt wor over there he could use some lashes maybe maureen dowd also
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