APPEALS COURT CONFIRMS NEWSPAPER CLOSUREEditor sentenced to six months in prison
New York, July 24, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) strongly condemns the decision announced today by a Tehran appeals court confirming the banning of Norooz, Iran’s main reformist daily, and the six-month jail sentence handed down to the paper’s editor, Mohsen Mirdamadi. According to press reports and CPJ sources in Tehran, an appeals court…
Iran: Reformist paper banned for violating news blackout
New York, July 16, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns last week’s ban on the reformist Iranian newspaper Azad. On July 11, Tehran’s Press Court ordered the pro-reform daily to cease publishing indefinitely because it had violated a government directive banning media commentary about the resignation of prominent cleric Ayatollah Jalaleddin Taheri. Iran’s Supreme…
National Security Council restricts coverage of top cleric’s resignation
New York, July 11, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed that Iran’s Supreme National Security Council has censored media coverage of the resignation of prominent cleric Ayatollah Jalaleddin Taheri. According to a CPJ source in Tehran, the council, which is headed by the president and includes several top government officials, sent the written…
Journalist sentenced, papers shut down
New York, May 10, 2002–In the latest wave of Iran’s ongoing crackdown on the press, the country’s conservative Press Court has sentenced two journalists to prison and banned three newspapers during the last two weeks. CPJ learned that on May 8, Iran’s Press Court convicted Mohsen Mirdamadi, a member of Parliament and director of the…
Journalist sentenced to prison
New York, May 2, 2002–CPJ condemns the recent sentencing of Iranian reformist journalist Ahmed Zaid-Abadi, a writer for the newspaper Hamshahri, to 23 months in prison. On April 29, The Associated Press quoted Zaid-Abadi’s wife as saying that he was originally charged in August 2000 with “insulting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei and publishing lies…
Editor sentenced to 74 lashes
New York, April 18, 2002—Ali-Hamed Imam, editor of the local weekly Shams-e Tabriz, was sentenced to 74 lashes and seven months in prison on April 16 by a court in Tabriz, 350 miles (560 kilometers) northwest of the capital, Tehran. According to Iran’s state news agency, IRNA, the court also revoked Imam’s publishing license and…
Attacks on the Press 2001: Introduction
IN THE WAKE of September 11, 2001, journalists around the world faced a press freedom crisis that was truly global in scope. In the first days and weeks after the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., governments across the globe–in China, Benin, the Palestinian Authority Territories, and the United States–took actions to…
Attacks on the Press 2001: Middle East Analysis
Bucking a worldwide trend toward democracy in the post-Cold War era, the political landscape of the Middle East and North Africa remained dominated by an assortment of military-backed regimes, police states, autocracies, and oligarchies. A new, younger generation of leaders has emerged in some countries in recent years, inheriting power and bringing hope for political…
Attacks on the Press 2001: Iran
The Iranian judiciary pushed ahead with its year-old crackdown on media dissent, further exacerbating an ongoing power struggle between conservative and reformist factions in the Islamic Republic. The crackdown began in April 2000, when Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivered a fiery speech accusing the country’s reformist press, which generally backs President Muhammed Khatami’s agenda…
Attacks on the Press 2001: Journalists in Prison
There were 118 journalists in prison around the world at the end of 2001 who were jailed for practicing their profession. The number is up significantly from the previous year, when 81 journalists were in jail, and represents a return to the level of 1998, when 118 were also imprisoned.