August 6, 1999
His Excellency Sayed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Guide to the Islamic Republic of Iran
c/o Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations
622 3rd Ave 34th Floor
New York, NY 10017
Your Excellency,
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a nonpartisan organization of journalists dedicated to defending press freedom worldwide, is writing to protest the Iranian authorities’ continued crackdown on independent and opposition journalists. We urge Your Excellency to assume a leadership role in reversing the sharp deterioration of press freedom in Iran.
In recent weeks our organization has written to Iranian government officials protesting the flood of state restrictions imposed on Iranian journalists. These restrictions violate universally accepted norms for press freedom. Several reporters and editors have been arrested and one newspaper closed for publishing critical news and opinion. Yet we have not received a reply to any of these letters.
We are writing now to express our grave concern about the five-year ban imposed Wednesday by the Special Court for Clergy against the reformist daily newspaper Salam, which had been indefinitely suspended by authorities on July 7. The court also banned the paper’s publisher, Hojatoleslam Seyyid Mohamed Musavi-Khoeiniha, from practicing journalism for three years. The sanctions against Salam and Musavi-Khoeiniha stem from the newspaper’s publication last month of an alleged secret government memorandum outlining plans to clamp down on reformist newspapers.
Previously, on July 25, the same court convicted Musavi-Khoeiniha of defamation and spreading false information for having published the alleged memo. He was sentenced to a lashing and three years in prison. However, the court suspended this sentence and instead ordered Musavi-Khoeinih to pay a fine of 23 million rials ($13,000).
CPJ is also deeply concerned about the reported arrest last week of Camelia Entekhabi-Fard, a journalist formerly working with the now-banned women’s newspaper, Zan. According to media reports, Entekhabi-Fard was arrested by Iranian authorities after returning from an extended trip to the United States. She has reportedly been accused of “cooperating with American media”–an apparent reference to her work as an intern for the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
CPJ views the closure of Salam, the conviction of Mohamed Musavi-Khoeiniha, and the arrest of Camelia Entekhabi-Fard as flagrant violations of the universally recognized right to free expression as guaranteed under international law. We remind Your Excellency that Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights grants journalists the right to “seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” We urge that you exert your influence to ensure that all journalists in Iran be allowed to practice their profession without fear of reprisal. Specifically, we urge you to advocate that Salam and other banned newspapers be permitted to resume publishing without interference from authorities, and that Mohamed Musavi-Khoeiniha be allowed to practice his profession freely. We also ask that you exert maximum efforts to ensure that Camelia Entekhabi-Fard and all other journalists who have been detained or imprisoned for practicing their internationally protected right to free expression be freed immediately.
Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter. We look forward to your timely response.
Sincerely,
Ann K. Cooper
Executive Director
Join CPJ in Protesting Attacks on the Press in Iran
Send a letter to:
His Excellency Sayed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Guide to the Islamic Republic of Iran
c/o Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations
622 3rd Ave 34th Floor
New York, NY 10017