Human Rights Experts: Iran Must End Harassment of Journalists
United Nations human rights experts and investigators have called on the Islamic Republic to stop the detention, intimidation, and prosecution of journalists and civil activists, and to release imprisoned journalists ahead of parliamentary elections.
A group of UN human rights investigators and experts issued a statement on Wednesday (November 11) calling for an end to the detention, intimidation, harassment, and prosecution of journalists in Iran. They urged the country’s judicial authorities to release imprisoned journalists and civil activists ahead of the parliamentary elections in Iran.
According to Reuters news agency, the UN experts’ statement also called on Iran to release Jason Rezaian, The Washington Post’s Tehran correspondent, who was “arbitrarily and unlawfully detained for peacefully advocating for fundamental [citizens’] rights.”
The 39-year-old Jason Rezaian, who holds dual Iranian-American citizenship, has been in detention since last summer. He was tried in a closed court presided over by Judge Solevatee on charges of “espionage and acting against Iran’s national security” and was convicted a month ago, but his sentence has not yet been officially delivered. Iranian authorities are reportedly planning to use him for extortion and as a bargaining chip in exchange deals for Iranian prisoners held in the United States.
The recent wave of journalist detentions in Iran began last week by the Revolutionary Guards’ Information Protection Unit. The detention of these journalists, who have been labeled “enemy infiltrators” by media outlets close to the Revolutionary Guards, drew a reaction from Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president. He called on responsible authorities to stop filing cases against journalists “to apply pressure and settle political scores with the government.”
Ahmad Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, in response to the detention and summoning of journalists in Iran for interrogation, described these actions as “another round of suppression of freedom of expression and media freedom.”
Read more: Government and Revolutionary Guards clash over detention of “infiltrators”
Isa Saharkhiz, journalist and political activist, Ehsan Mazandarani, editor-in-chief of Farhikhegan newspaper, Afrin Chitsaz, columnist for government newspaper Iran, Hassan Sheikh Aqaei, manager of Ravangeh website, and Saman Safarzaei, among the editors of Andisheh Poya publication, are among the journalists who have been arrested in the recent crackdown. It is reported that more than 20 journalists have also been summoned for interrogation by the Guards’ intelligence unit.
Reporters Without Borders ranked Iran in March of this year as one of the world’s countries with the highest number of imprisoned journalists, with 46 journalists in prison. Iran is known as the “hell for journalists” in the world.
