30 January 2007

Alert

Three online journalists arrested at Tehran airport; another goes missing after being arrested in Sanadaj


Incident details

Tala't Taghinia, Mansoureh Shojaie, Farnaz Seify, Adnan Hassanpour

journalist(s)

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(RSF/IFEX) - Three online journalists and women's rights activists, Tala't Taghinia, Mansoureh Shojaie and Farnaz Seify, were arrested at Tehran airport on 27 January 2007 as they were about to board a plane for India to undergo journalism training.

They were released the following afternoon after being interrogated at Evin Prison, in the north of the city.

Reporters Without Borders is also concerned about the disappearance of journalist Adnan Hassanpour, who was arrested by the authorities in Sanadaj in Iranian Kurdistan on 25 January and whose family has had no news of him since.

"The arrest of these online journalists demonstrates President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's security and ideological paranoia which prompts him to ban all contact between journalists and foreign organisations and media," the worldwide press freedom organisation said.

"This incident is also revealing of the fear that the women's rights movement produces within the regime", it added.

Tala't Taghinia, Mansoureh Shojaie and Farnaz Seify were all due to undertake journalism training in India, funded by a foreign organisation, along with 12 other people. Most of them are members of the women's cultural centre, an organisation which has launched a petition calling for reform of laws that discriminate against women.

The homes of the three journalists were also searched and their computers seized. Although they were released on 28 January, the security forces told them that they would be questioned again in the coming weeks. Their computers were not returned to them when they left the prison.

Tala't Taghinia and Mansoureh Shojaie contribute to several Iranian online publications, including "Zanestan"("City of Women" - http://herlandmag.net ) and "Tagir Bary Barbary" ("Change to Equality" - http://we-change.org/ ), which campaign for women's rights. Farnaz Seify is a journalist for the daily "Sarmayeh" and runs a very popular blog in Iran, http://www.farnaaz.com , which has been inaccessible since her arrest.

Journalist Adnan Hassanpour, who was arrested in front of his home on 25 January, works for the weekly "Asou". Publication of the weekly has been suspended since 2005 on the orders of the Culture and Islamic Orientation Ministry, because it carried articles about the very tense situation in Iranian Kurdistan.



Source

Reporters Without Borders
47, rue Vivienne
75002 Paris
France
rsf (@) rsf.org
Phone: +33 1 44 83 84 84
Fax: +33 1 45 23 11 51
 

Updates to this story

One journalist held incommunicado in south, three others get prison sentences in north; Kurdish journalist begins hunger strike 16 November 2007 Supreme Court upholds death sentence for Kurdish journalist; decision should be "taken very seriously," says RSF 9 November 2007 Two Kurdish-Iranian journalists on death row call off hunger strike 7 September 2007 Two journalists on hunger strike protest their death sentences 14 August 2007 Four Kurdish journalists and writers arrested for expressing support for two colleagues sentenced to death 1 August 2007 Two Kurdish journalists sentenced to death 23 July 2007 Two more journalists arrested; RSF calls for release of four journalists held in Kurdish northwest 15 March 2007

Iran

With 52 journalists in jail, Iran hits new, shameful record 10 March 2010 Two newspapers closed, detained journalists under pressure to request forgiveness 5 March 2010 Hardline conservative journalist attacked 23 February 2010 UN Human Rights Council reviews situation in Iran 16 February 2010 Iran attempts to stifle Internet on anniversary of revolution 12 February 2010


 
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