Press freedom violations recounted in real time (from 1st July 2010)
2nd July 2010 - Two released and one freed on licence
Narges Mohammadi, journalist and spokesperson for the Defenders of Human Rights Centre, was released today on bail of 50 million tomans (40,000 euros). Intelligence ministry agents arrested the journalist, who works with Nobel peace prize laureate, Shirin Ebadi, at her home on the evening of 10 June 2010.
Reporters Without Borders also learned of the release on bail on 26 June, of Mahbobeh Khanssari, who works for the agency Cultural Heritage. She was arrested at her home on 1st June. On the other hand, Azam Vismeh, online journalist with Parlemannews (official website of parliamentary reformists), who was arrested at the same time as her, is still being held in solitary confinement and has been banned from receiving visitors.
Judicial authorities on 24 June allowed a release on licence to seriously ill journalist and documentary maker Mohammad Norizad. He worked for several years as an editorialist on the daily Kayhan, the conservatives leading press organ. Following the disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president on 12 June 2009, the journalist, who also ran the blog http://mohammadnurizad.blogfa.com/, began to be openly critical of Iran’s Supreme Leader as well as the government and the country’s justice system. The 54th chamber of Tehran’s appeal court on 29 May confirmed his sentence of three and a half years in prison and 50 lashes for “publicity against the regime and insulting the authorities”.
Abdolreza Tajik, journalist and member of the Circle for the Defenders of Human Rights, was arrested on 12 June 2010. His family still has not been informed either of the place he is being detained or the reasons for his arrest.