Reporters Without Borders exposes Iranian court case with nearly two million registered names

Reporters Without Borders announced in a statement on Thursday, February 8, that it can confirm, citing an official document from the Islamic Republic of Iran's judicial system, that at least 860 journalists and citizen-journalists were arrested, imprisoned, and even executed in the country between 1979 and 2009.

On Wednesday, February 7, Reporters Without Borders held a press conference announcing the "acquisition of a computer file" that, based on its "information and contents" registered in Iran, could reveal "arrests, imprisonments, and executions in Tehran."

According to Reporters Without Borders, the file was provided to the organization by “whistleblowers who wanted to raise the alarm about the brutal repression… to public opinion and international institutions.”

According to a statement by Reporters Without Borders, this file includes "data from the Iranian judicial system" in recent decades, and Reporters Without Borders has analyzed part of this data from the period 1979 to 2009.

As Reporters Without Borders has stated: "This file contains one million seven hundred thousand names, which include all social groups and individuals, including women, men, and children, members of religious and ethnic minorities, ordinary prisoners and political prisoners, including political opponents of the regime, journalists, and citizen-journalists."

According to Reporters Without Borders, based on the findings of its researchers from the contents of this file, "between 1979 and 2009, the Iranian regime arrested and imprisoned at least 860 journalists, a number of whom have been executed."

The report, noting that "there is no mention in this case of the 'defendants' being journalists," clarifies that "the Iranian regime repeatedly repeats in domestic and international circles that there are no journalists and, in general, no prisoners of conscience or political prisoners in its prisons."

According to the statement by Reporters Without Borders, this behavior, called "government lying," "has been deliberately orchestrated to both silence critics and deceive global human rights institutions."

According to these findings, "the judicial system has attempted to manipulate or distort the truth about the situation and charges against journalists and political prisoners."

The statement states that "journalists have been arrested and imprisoned on false charges such as "acting against internal security," "propaganda against the Islamic Republic," "collaborating with foreign elements," and "espionage."

The report also confirms: "Other charges such as "insulting Islamic sanctities" and "insulting and insulting the position of the Leader of the Islamic Republic or the founder of the system" have also been used to arrest journalists and citizen journalists."

Christophe Deloire, Director General of Reporters Without Borders, said: "The existence of this file and its millions of data not only exposes the extensive lies of Iranian government officials over all these years that there are no political prisoners and journalists in the country's prisons, but also shows that the Islamic Republic's regime has imprisoned hundreds of men and women for their beliefs or their work as reporters for 40 years through relentless and organized repression."

The Director General of Reporters Without Borders, headquartered in Paris, France, has called on Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, to "hold the authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran accountable for their actions in the face of this government lie."

Part of the statement by Reporters Without Borders refers to the execution of at least four journalists in the 1960s: Saeed Soltanpour, Rahman Hatefi Monfared, Simon Farzami, and Ali Asghar Amirani are the journalists executed in those years, and the organization has mentioned their names and case registration numbers.

According to Reporters Without Borders' analysis of this computerized court file, "of the approximately 61,924 women registered in this official judicial document, 218 are journalists and citizen journalists."

Part of the findings of Reporters Without Borders relate to arrests related to popular protests following the controversial 2009 elections, which, according to the organization's statement, is "the first time" that it "confirms that more than 6,048 people have been arrested in popular protests against the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of the Islamic Republic in 2009."

According to the findings of the Reporters' Organization, at least more than 600 women and 5,400 men have been arrested on charges of "acting against internal security."

The report confirms that the charge of acting against national security has also been used against journalists and citizen journalists covering the demonstrations.

Reporters Without Borders confirms in its statement that among the hundreds of names in this case, the names of well-known imprisoned journalists can be seen, including Faraj Sarkouhi, Reza Alijani, Taghi Rahmani, Akbar Ganji, Mohammad Seddiq Kaboudvand, Jila Bani Yaqoub and her husband Bahman Ahmadi Amouie, Saeed Matinpour, Hengameh Shahidi, Narges Mohammadi, and Ahmad Zeidabadi.

Part of this statement addresses the killing of Zahra Kazemi, an Iranian-Canadian photojournalist who was arrested in July 2003 while photographing a gathering of prisoners' families in front of Evin Prison. Shortly after, Iranian judicial authorities announced that she had died in hospital.

Reporters Without Borders has announced that, in analyzing the contents of the judicial system's data files, it has obtained information about at least 61,940 political prisoners since 1980, at least 520 of whom were only 15 to 18 years old at the time of their arrest.

According to the organization, the file also includes the names of a number of victims of the mass killing of political prisoners in the summer of 1988.

This summer, nearly 4,000 prisoners, including a number of journalists, were re-interrogated in sessions that often lasted only a few minutes, on the orders of Ayatollah Khomeini, and many were sentenced to death. Members of death squads formed throughout Iran issued death sentences to most prisoners who did not express remorse for their beliefs.

According to the report, "The judicial system's data file reveals for the first time that 5,760 Iranian citizens in Tehran have been prosecuted, arrested, or in some cases executed solely on the charge of membership in the "deviant Baha'i sect," according to the judicial system."

Reporters Without Borders stated in its statement that after obtaining this file, it formed a committee called the Monitoring Committee on the Use of Data by the Judicial System, headed by Shirin Ebadi, a human rights lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner, to analyze and verify this information.

According to the organization, the members of this committee were Munireh Baradaran, a human rights activist, writer, and researcher, a political prisoner in the 1960s, Iraj Mosadaghi, a human rights activist, researcher, and political prisoner in the 1960s, and Reza Moeini, a researcher and representative of Reporters Without Borders.

Source: Radio Farda