Maziar Bahari

Today we released our annual census of imprisoned journalists around the world, citing 145 reporters, editors, and photojournalists behind bars on December 1, an increase of nine from 2009 figures. The tally begs the question, What's in a number?

The Daily Show’s Jason Jones mocks journalistic conventions to hilarious effect. But Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are not known for their sense of humor, and let’s just say they didn’t get the joke.

New York, May 10, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a 13-year prison sentence handed down to Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari in absentia on Sunday.

Newsweek correspondent Bahari, who was held in detention for four months on manufactured anti-state charges in 2009, was sentenced by a Tehran Revolutionary Court on Sunday to 13 years in prison, in addition to 74 lashes.

New York, May 10, 2010—The Overseas Press Club of America and the Committee to Protect Journalists are calling on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to bring an end to a nearly year-long campaign of harassment and intimidation of critical Iranian journalists working domestically and abroad.

New York, April 19, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned threats made by the Iranian government against Newsweek correspondent Maziar Bahari. Bahari, left, who was imprisoned in Iran for 118 days on fabricated antistate charges following last year’s disputed June presidential election, told CPJ that family members in Iran had received a threatening phone call on Saturday from a man who identified himself as an Iranian court official. 

March 2010

News from the Committee to Protect Journalists

New York, March 1, 2010—In response to the brutal crackdown against journalists, writers, and bloggers in Iran, a coalition of leading press freedom and free expression groups have launched a petition drive calling for the release of those imprisoned. More such professionals are now in prison in Iran than in any other country in the world—at least 60, 47 of them journalists.

The two venues for the launch of Attacks on the Press in New York couldn’t have been more different. On Tuesday morning I was joined by Newsweek’s Maziar Bahari, and CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Bob Dietz in the hushed auditorium of the Dag Hammarskjöld Library at United Nations headquarters. The event was so well attended by the U.N. press corps that we ran out of copies of the book. The press conference went for more than an hour until I was slipped a note saying the U.N. spokesman needed the podium for the U.N. daily briefing.

Newsweek journalist Maziar Bahari helped us launch Attacks on the Press at the United Nations in New York today. Bahari, an Iranian-Canadian citizen, was labeled an enemy of the Iranian regime and cruelly imprisoned for 118 days last year in Tehran. His very presence today, CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney noted, was testament to the “tremendous efforts of press freedom groups around the world" that have advocated for the release of jailed journalists. But with at least 47 journalists in jail in Iran as of February 1, according to CPJ research, it’s still a “pretty grim picture,” Mahoney said.