Basic
freedom and rights abused
Reporters
Without Borders: Iran, a prison for journalists
…Despite
the moderate candidate Hassan Rouhani’s election as Iran’s president in June
2013, and despite his promises of reform, 12 Iranian journalists fled the
country in 2013 to escape government persecution.
At
least 178 journalists are in prison right now. China, Eritrea, Turkey, Iran and
Syria continue to be world’s five leading jailers of journalists as they were
in 2012…
The
world’s five biggest prisons for journalists
Iran:
awaiting reform
20 journalists and 51 netizens imprisoned
Hassan
Rouhani, a moderate conservative candidate backed by the reformists, was
elected president with 51 per cent of the votes on 15 June. Despite his
promises of reform and despite the release of some prisoners of conscience,
including a few journalists and netizens, most of the news providers who were
in prison before his election – the majority of them arrested in the wake of
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed reelection as president in June 2009 – are still
there.
At
least 76 journalists have been arrested since the start of 2013, 42 of them
since June. Seventeen others have been given sentences ranging from one to nine
years in prison. Twelve newspapers and magazines have been suspended or forced
to stop publishing under pressure from the authorities. Inhuman treatment of
prisoners of opinion continues to be common. Many detainees are still denied
medical care despite being very ill or in poor physical and mental health as a
result of their imprisonment. (Reporters without Borders 18 December 2013)
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