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Alert

Iranian New Year starts as badly as ever for the press

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF has condemned the latest negative developments for press freedom that accompanied the arrival of the Iranian New Year in March 2005.

On returning from their New Year's holiday, 80 conservative parliamentarians called for reformist journalist Massih Alinejad to be banned from entering Parliament. In addition, the president of the Association of Iranian Journalists, Ali Mazroi, was banned from leaving the country, and officials also closed two magazines.

"Iranian journalists are no longer allowed to express themselves outside the country any more than inside. The conservatives who dominate the country's religious, political and judicial institutions are doing everything possible to silence dissent. We call on the parliamentary speaker to restore Alinejad's rights since she committed no crime," RSF said.

Condemning the closure of the magazines "Jameh Nou" and "Karnameh", RSF called on the Ministry of Islamic Guidance to allow them to resume publishing. The organisation also stressed that the Iranian authorities should not prevent a journalist from travelling abroad or participating in international conferences. Mazroi should be allowed to travel abroad without being harassed, RSF said, calling for the immediate return of his passport.

The publication of their salaries prompted the parliamentarians to turn on Alinejad. A parliamentary reporter for the reformist daily "Hambasteghi" and the ILNA news agency, she was banned from Parliament on 4 April. For much of the past year, she had been the target of a smear campaign by parliamentarians who criticised her clothes as well as "her rudeness and impoliteness."

Conservative members of parliament accused Alinejad of stealing their pay slips from their mail slots. In fact, a reformist MP had shown the journalist his pay slip. Since the ban, Alinejad has won the support of several newspapers, which announced that they will not report parliamentary news for one day, in protest. The Iranian lawyer and Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi has said she will defend Alinejad, although no legal action has been taken to date.

On 6 April, Mazroi had his passport taken away and was prevented from leaving the country as he was about to board a flight to Denmark to attend a meeting of the International Federation of Journalists. The airport police did not explain their action. In 2004, Mazroi wrote several open letters condemning the arrest of his son, Hanif Mazroi, who has since been released.

On 7 April, the Ministry of Islamic Guidance ordered the closure of the monthly "Karnameh" for publishing news and poems deemed "immoral." The ministry said it intended to prosecute the magazine.

The Ministry of Islamic Guidance also banned "Jameh Nou", a magazine aimed at intellectuals, a few days before the Iranian New Year, on 8 March. The Press Control Commission justified the move by saying the magazine was not publishing regularly. "Jameh Nou" advocates political and religious reform. Its editor, Ftameh Kamli Sara, is the wife of independent journalist Emadoldin Baghi, who has spent several years in prison, mainly because of articles in which he advocated free expression and a modern vision of Iran.