Media News - Wednesday, August 05, 2009

In Iran, five journalists released, two arrested

Five journalists have been released in Iran, including one on Monday who had been held for a year. The other four were picked up in the crackdown following the June 12 elections. Authorities released freelance journalist Massoud Kurdpour on Monday after he completed a one-year jail term in Mahabad Central Prison in northwestern Iran. Kurdpour was initially arrested in August, 2008, and was found guilty in October, 2008, of making "propaganda against the regime," CPJ research shows. Also released was Ali-Reza Beheshti, editor-in-chief of Kalameh Sabz, a newspaper affiliated with defeated presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, a local journalist told CPJ. He was arrested on June 22, hours after security agents detained about 25 staffers from his paper; most of them were let go after a week. Two other journalists who were never identified were released at a later date. Kambiz Nouroozi, director of legal affairs at the Association of Iranian Journalists, was freed in late July. He was initially arrested on June 28. CPJ has confirmed the arrest of two other journalists, who were detained soon after the elections. Fatima Khavari, director of the weekly newspaper Chragh, was arrested on June 22, according to press reports. Omid Selimi, a photographer who worked for Nesf e Jehan newspaper in Esfahan, was arrested on June 14 after he was summoned to the Revolutionary Guards' office to pick up belongings that had been confiscated during an earlier arrest, according to Human Rights and Democracy Activists in Iran, a local human rights watchdog. Selimi was also detained in December, 2008, and spent three months in prison for unspecified charges. Iran remains the world's leading jailer of journalists with 36 in jail. (Committee to Protect Journalists )

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