New York, November 6, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) welcomes the release of prominent Iranian journalist and reform politician Abdullah Nouri. On Tuesday, November 5, Iranian authorities announced that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had commuted the remainder of Nouri’s five-year prison term. The pardon came while Nouri was furloughed from prison to attend…
New York, September 17, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the recent decision by Tehran’s Press Court to suspend two more newspapers. The latest ruling brings to 54 the total number of publications suspended since a crackdown began in April 2000. According to a CPJ source in Iran, on Sunday, September 15, the Press…
New York, August 9, 2002-The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns yesterday’s court–ordered closure of two Iranian newspapers. This latest ruling brings to 52 the total number of publications that authorities have banned in Iran since April 2000. Tehran’s conservative Press Court yesterday banned the newly launched daily Ayineh-e-Jonoub (formerly a weekly), citing more than…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…