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Journalists under siege

          
          Iran: Journalists under siege I Ann sty International http://wwwamnestyorg/en/mws-and-i.çdates/iran-journalists-urder-sieg ,
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          1 of 7 27/07 2010 14:19
        
          
          Iran: Journalists under siege I Ant' sty International http://wwwamnestyorg/en/mws-and-i .çdates/iran-journalists-uzxler-sieg.
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          IRAN: JOURNALISTS UNDER SIEGE
          30 April 2010
          ‘Around 70
          journalists are
          now in the
          prisons of the
          Islamic
          Republic and
          many others,
          like me, are
          free on bail,
          lacking any
          security. We
          are afraid that
          anything that
          we write may
          be used as
          evidence of
          “propaganda
          against the
          system” or
          “conspiracy
          against
          national
          security'l My
          colleagues and
          I tiy to write as
          little as
          possible.”
          Open letter
          from journalist
          Zhila Bani
          Ya'qoub to the
          Head of Iranian
          Judiciary
          Iranian
          journalists and
          bloggers are
          increasingly
          under siege in
          one of the
          biggest
          crackdowns on
          independent
          voices and
          Embed: 
          
          Iran: Journalists under siege I Ant sty International ltp://wwwamnestyorg/en/mws-and-i .çdates/iran-journalists-uzx ler-sieg
          dissent in Iran's The killing of Neda Agha Soltan during a
          demonstration was reported worldwide
          modern history. ©AForaphics nk
          Since last
          year's disputed presidential election, which brought millions of
          protesters onto the streets, the authorities have intensified
          their long-standing suppression of both the traditional Iranian
          media and the rising number of “citizen journalists” who use
          new technology to expose human rights violations.
          Iran has been described by press freedom organizations as
          the biggest jailer of journalists in the world.
          Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International's Deputy
          Director for the Middle East and North Africa said: “Since the
          protests, the government's growing bunker mentality has led
          to mounting waves of repression aimed at suppressing any
          criticism of the authorities or independent reporting on the
          human rights situation in the country.
          “Dozens of newspapers and websites have been closed, and
          scores of journalists and bloggers have been arrested and
          are held as prisoners of conscience or have had to flee the
          country for their own safety.
          “Contact with some foreign media has been criminalized and
          a new ‘Cyber-Crimes Law' is already having major
          implications for freedom of expression. The authorities must
          urgently relax both the long standing and new sweeping
          restrictions and immediately release those held as prisoners
          of conscience.”
          The Association of Iranian Journalists was closed by the
          authorities in August 2009 and a number of its officials
          arrested, including Secretary Badrolsadat Mofidi who by April
          2010 had spent four months in detention without charge or
          trial.
          Blogging, once an effective way around Iran's draconian
          press censorship, is now a risky business. The once-thriving
          blogosphere is under fire, with those involved subjected to
          arbitrary arrest or harassment. Some have had to flee the
          country for their own safety.
          Aida Saadat, a freelance journalist and human rights
          campaigner, active with the One Million Signature Campaign
          and the Commiftee of Human Rights Reporters was
          repeatedly interrogated; and beaten up while walking home.
          Fearing for her life, she eventually fled Iran.
          She told Amnesty International: “I could not find any human
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          Iran: Journalists under siege I Ant sty International http://wwwann lestyorg/en/mws-and-1 .çdates/iran-journalists-urKIer-sieg.
          rights or other organization to defend me, as a journalist.
          They had been silenced. The men who attacked me said ‘this
          is just a warning. Next time we will kill you for your activities
          against the people of our country...' This is what we have
          been facing. I and so many others had to leave. Our lives
          were at stake.”
          Many of the detainees and those who fled worked for papers
          or online publications which supported or could have been
          perceived as supporting the defeated reformist candidates in
          the presidential elections, or are freelancers, some of whom
          who had lost jobs with previously-banned publications while
          others provided an independent voice, often about the human
          rights situation. At one point officials arrested the entire staff
          of Kalameh Sabz, a newspaper established by opposition
          candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.
          Prisoner of conscience Isa Saharkhiz, a prominent journalist
          working with reformist candidate Mehdi Karroubi, was
          arrested in July 2009 during the post election unrest; by April
          2010 he had yet to be charged with any offence. His son,
          Mehdi, a US-based blogger, explains: “What happened is at
          one point they realized that the media is playing a big role at
          getting the news out and getting the truth out. So what they
          did was they arrested well known journalists, so other
          journalists who are working will learn from this... and they will
          write just what the state wants them to write.”
          Other targets included journalists writing on human rights
          issues, such as the internationally-acclaimed Emadeddin
          Baghi, founder of the Association for the Defence of
          Prisoners' Rights. Some journalists have been sentenced to
          lengthy prison terms after conviction in mass “show trials”.
          Detainees have faced human rights violations ranging from
          torture and other ill-treatment, including beatings, solitary
          confinement for lengthy periods, to grossly unfair trials. Many
          have been held incommunicado for weeks or months without
          charge or trial.
          Some of those freed still remain under pressure, having had
          to give up the deeds to their — or their relatives' — houses to
          raise bail. Detainees' families have been harassed or
          temporarily detained; some have been warned their loved
          ones won't be freed if they speak to the media about their
          plight.
          Criminalizing contacts with foreigners: The ‘Velvet
          Coup'
          With Iran's media limited in their reporting by government
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          Iran: Journalists under siege I Ant sty International lttp://wwwann lestyorg/en/mws-and-1 .çdates/iran-journalists-urKIer-sieg
          censorship and fearful of crossing the “red line” over the
          decades, many Iranians have in the past tuned in to foreign
          radio stations, or watched international TV networks via
          illegal, though previously largely tolerated, satellite dishes.
          Since the first election of President Ahmadinejad in 2005,
          Iranian security forces have conducted an increasing number
          of raids to seize such dishes.
          The authorities have also reduced the number of foreign
          correspondents based in Iran; when political unrest erupted in
          mid-2009, those remaining were barred from covering mass
          opposition rallies.
          International media broadcasting in Persian were singled out
          and their Iranian contributors targeted. The BBC's Tehran
          correspondent was expelled. Maziar Bahari, working for
          Newsweek, - one of two international journalists arrested at
          the time - was released only after making a dubious public
          “confession” following weeks of physical and psychological
          torture.
          Prosecutors in mass “show trials” accused foreign
          broadcasters like the BBC and the Voice of America (VOA) of
          stage-managing the protests and planning a “soft coup”.
          Some of the accused were charged with working with foreign
          channels in order to “incite and provoke public opinion”.
          In January, both the BBC and VOA were included on a list of
          “subversive” organizations which Iranians were banned from
          contacting. Both networks have had their satellite
          transmissions into Iran blocked but the truth is that now any
          contribution to any overseas Persian-language broadcaster is
          regarded as suspicious if not seditious.
          From cassettes to Twitter
          After decades of repression, Iranians are adept at finding a
          way around state censorship. In the 1970s, Ayatollah
          Khomeini, then an exiled opponent of the former Shah, used
          cassette tapes of his sermons smuggled in from abroad to
          denounce the Shah's increasingly autocratic rule. Those
          cassettes played an important part in the subsequent Islamic
          Revolution.
          In 1999, the closure of Salam newspaper led to mass
          student-led protests - and eventually to violent
          confrontations between them and the security forces. Over
          the next few years, the media became a focal point in the
          power struggle between conservative and reformist factions.
          More than a hundred newspapers and periodicals were
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          Iran: Journalists under siege I Ant' sty International ltp://www ,an'niesty ,org/en/rcws-and-i ,çdates/iran-journalists-uix ler-sieg , , ,
          closed. There was a explosion of internet use as Iranian
          writers increasingly turned to it as virtually the only remaining
          forum for free expression. Internet usage in Iran in recent
          years has grown faster than in any other Middle Eastern
          country.
          But the authorities have been hot on the bloggers' heels,
          filtering and blocking access to many sites, ranging from
          those considered ‘immoral or “anti-Islamic' to political
          websites or blogs critical of the government.
          At one stage, an Iranian official claimed that five million sites
          were being blocked. Facebook and Twitter - used to spread
          information about last year's demonstrations - were briefly
          shut down and other internet sites such as social networking
          site Badoo have been banned.
          Last February, the authorities announced that access to
          Google's email service was to be permanently blocked. Some
          tech savvy Iranians continue to find their way around the
          system, using filter-busting software, encryption services or
          “proxy” internet servers outside Iran, although they have been
          hampered by speed slowdowns, or even brief blockages of
          internet access.
          The latest salvo in the battle came when the Cyber-Crimes
          Law came into effect in July 2009; human rights groups say it
          could help the authorities track down government critics. But
          images of the killing of Neda Agha Soltan during a
          demonstration in July 2009, captured by mobile phone
          camera and almost instantly distributed across the world,
          became the symbol of the futility of attempts by the authorities
          to conceal the truth and control new media and social
          networks.
          It's all led to what Mehdi Saharkhiz describes as “a cat and
          mouse game,” with Iranians trying to circumvent official filters
          as soon as they are set up. He also points to a huge rise in
          the number of “citizen journalists” many of whom have
          managed to send news or videos for posting on his US-based
          website.
          During the 2009 protests, he says the amount of video
          material coming in was “staggering”. Some contributors, he
          says, are professional journalists who now prefer to work
          anonymously in order to keep under the official radar. Others
          may be friends or neighbours of political prisoners, or just
          individuals who see something they want to share with others.
          “Every person has become a media,” he said. “Even taking
          pictures of this stuff is extremely dangerous for them. But they
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          Iran: Journalists under siege I Ann sty International http://wwwamnestyorg/en/mws-and-i.çdates/iran-journalists-urder-sieg ,
          want to do this because they want to be heard. You can't
          control 70 million people.”
          S1 1 Français Españo l
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